


wander a while longer, pass these dying stars to serenity

by mollivanders



Category: Firefly, Lost
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Big Bang Challenge, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-16
Updated: 2010-09-16
Packaged: 2017-10-30 11:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the start of the second war between the Independents and the Alliance, Juliet wakes up in an Alliance lab while the crew of Serenity is raiding it. Following her escape, she joins the crew in search of answers and some vengeance, only to find herself caught up in a revolution. Set after the end of the film Serenity.</p><p>Written for scifibigbang Fall 2010.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Rating: PG-13  
> Word Count: 27,449  
> Warnings: Canon for Firefly using the show and the movie Serenity. Canon for LOST applies only through 6x01 "L.A.X." with no sideways!verse.

Mal never thought there’d be a time when Zoe wouldn’t have his back.

And she still does, in some ways. Still comes with him on the few jobs they do between raids; still handles the perimeter when they hit an Alliance outpost.

But whenever they get back to _Serenity_ , Zoe becomes as much of a ghost as Wash; just disappears. The others notice but nobody (not even Mal) blames her.

It leaves a gap in leadership that needs to be filled, and ever the soldier Mal grooms River for the position, if only because she takes to it so naturally. She helps him pilot _Serenity_ and they take time out for training exercises, hand to hand combat where she lays him out more often than not.

Simon keeps a watchful eye on them while Kaylee sits beside him, swinging her legs over the cavernous space of _Serenity_ ’s belly and teasing him in turns.

Ever since the broad wave Mal sent out, he and his crew have a shiny target painted on them, one the Alliance isn’t interested in ever removing. Hiding out on backwaters and away from any jobs reeked of nihilism too much for Mal’s taste, so when he got a wave from an old commander asking him to enlist again, he jumped at the chance.

It was the first, and last, time he ever took a vote from his crew.

 

 _Serenity_ ’s got more than a bitty cannon attached to her now; the Independents outfitted her well. Twin cannons balance below each of the shuttles and River’s rigged up another that sits behind the bridge, switches to autofire on her command.

The little girl’s got a talent for death Mal feels uncomfortable admiring, but does anyway.

( _Serenity_ tests well the first time they skirmish with an Alliance ship – in the blaze of gunfire River holds her steady while Mal and Jayne take the cannons. They’re all marked men now, but it’s more honest this way.)

 

Mal’s no good at taking orders anymore, not since he was left for dead, but the commission status of his crew works out well in the newly ignited war. The Independents fight like they always have and Mal still does the job and gets paid, but he’s not putting his crew at risk any more than he already has. Some things never change.

Get in, get out, get paid.

He’s learned by now, leadership’s just a word for the first man to get killed.

 

Mal takes a job on the Rim, gives River the coordinates and while she sets up the cloaking shield he goes over the job with Zoe and Jayne. Kaylee hovers by River; the mechanic’s part in this means keeping them invisible as long as she’s able.

The target’s an Alliance laboratory where it’s rumored they test peoples’ brains, implant them with suggestions and false realities. It’s not unlike the place where River was kept, so Simon goes over the schematic of the old facility with Mal, tense shoulders inches apart.

No costumes this time though. They’re just going in guns blazing.

Zoe’s silent on the drop but does her job – runs the perimeter and follows Mal into the heart of the lab where few scientists want to risk their lives for a government plan. War’s funny like that – makes folk realize what they’re willing to die for.

The job is just to find out what the Alliance is hiding, but the place is a maze, all white walls and levels leading to more levels. Mal sends Zoe off in one direction with Jayne and barrels down an empty looking corridor. She’s on the comm and can hear him, but he’s not expecting trouble at this juncture.

Something makes him take pause, a gut feeling he’s learned to obey, at an ordinary looking door at an indistinguishable part of the hallway, and his hand drifts over the handle. Mal checks both ways before he shrugs and slides the door open.

It’s a dimly lit room with blue lights swinging in the darkness, but even with so little to see by, Mal realizes what’s inside the vertical coffins.

People, suspended in time and their own minds, dead to the verse and to him.

 _I don’t know what they did to her,_ Simon’s voice echoes in his head.

Mal guesses it’s something like this.

He takes a walk around the room, looking at the people whose lives are gone, sacrificed under some promise or wish that will never be realized (not in this life).

Just as Mal’s made the full circle, ready to get the hell out of here, when a blonde woman close to him opens her eyes and gasps against the glass, choking on the liquid suspending her.


	2. Chapter 2

Juliet can still hear James’ voice in her head. _Where do you think you’re going, Blondie?_

Her body _hurts_ and she can smell the blood on her hands, feel the shrapnel from the bomb sinking into her and she doesn’t think she’ll last long like this.

She closes her eyes (wills herself to relax, slips away).

 

(Her eyes snap open in shock and she gasps for air, sucks in fluid instead. Her fingers scratch at the glass casing and beyond the froth she can see a man staring at her in shock. She bucks against the glass, losing oxygen, and sees him race toward her.)

 

Her eyes snap open. James is holding her and she’s gasping for air, blood filling her lungs. Even now, she can feel him slipping away and something else pulling her in the opposite direction.

She has something to tell him (tries to remember a fleeting moment).

Her lungs fill up (breathe no more).

 

Juliet wonders how many times a person can die in a lifetime – she feels herself being dragged out and falling to the floor, her body slipping around on the liquid she’s coated in. A faint voice orders her, _Breathe, damn it_ as hands pump at her chest.

Her survival instinct is too strong. She has to get home.

She chokes up a liquid mess and opens her eyes to see a shocked looking man cradling her shoulders as she empties her lungs.

In the stories, this is where she’d pass out (but no such luck).

“Where am I?” she whispers, voice hoarse from unfamiliar chemicals. “Who are you?”

He grimaces at her sympathetically and offers her his hand. “I’m Malcolm Reynolds and I’m raiding this lab. Looks like the Alliance had you and your friends here as tests, don’t quite know what for yet.” Juliet turns her head and sees bodies hanging in glass boxes, her stomach flipping in shock and confusion. _Your friends_. 

She doesn’t know anyone here.

“We’ve gotta go,” Malcolm continues and pulls her up. “Think you can walk?”

The suit Juliet’s in sucks against her body and she feels naked but leans against his arm anyway, trying to focus. “I can walk.”

He leads her down a hallway, glances one way and shakes his head before taking her the other way. “I captain a ship, _Serenity_ ,” he says and she stares at him in surprise. 

“We’re getting out of here on a ship?”

“Well, yeah. She’ll get us out of here fast enough. You know where you come from?” Malcolm asks.  
Juliet thinks hard, tries to remember (real memories). “Miami.”

The captain frowns, mutters “Never heard of it,” just as a shot rings out and a harsh voice yells “Stop there!”

“’Cause that always works,” Malcolm retorts and swings Juliet around the corner as more gunfire peppers out. “Zoe!” he yells into a small device, “I found a girl but she’s pretty beat up. And we’ve got company! End of the east corridor!”

Busy talking into the device, he misses the guy sneaking around the corner, and without thinking Juliet leans around the captain and grabs his gun. Points, shoots, watches the guy fall to the ground.

When she looks up Malcolm’s got more surprise written over his face, but the ricochet of gunfire grabs his attention and he pulls them both back around the corner.

Above the racket, Juliet hears a man call out “Grenade!” and tenses as an explosion rocks the hallway behind them.

It goes quiet.

She can’t hear over the ringing in her ears but Malcolm’s motioning her back down the hall they came, and a burly looking man ushers them forward as a taller woman, dark hair swinging back and forth, keeps the path clear behind them.

When they round the bend, Juliet sees what Malcolm meant by ‘ship’ and she turns, questions pouring out of her as they rush on board.

“Who the hell are you people?”

 

Juliet sits patiently while the doctor (Simon, his name’s Simon) checks her responses and brain functions. She’s never seen this medical equipment before but she’s getting now that she’s a bit out of her depth here.

Okay, a lot out of her depth. Denial’s easier.

“Can you feel this?” Simon asks, knocking an instrument against her leg and she kicked reflexively, not paying attention. From the other bed, Kaylee smiled at her encouragingly.

“So you all live on this ship, and you’re fighting the government – the Alliance?” she asks carefully. “Why?”

Simon looks up with a half-smile, the look of a man who’s had to answer this question for himself all too often. 

“Because they hurt people,” he answers, a layer to his answer Juliet doesn’t understand.

“As governments tend to do,” Mal (not Malcolm) interrupts as he walks in. She’d called him Malcolm once more and he’d corrected her so fast she wondered why he even introduced himself that way.

“Like they did to you,” he adds.

Juliet nods, not agreeing or disagreeing. She honestly doesn’t know what, if anything, was done to her. If this is a complex dream, a strange afterlife or, like the crew keeps telling her, reality. Life in 2519. She’s heard these arguments before (they weren’t exactly convincing then).

“But you started the war?” she asks, standing as Simon puts the medical equipment away.

“In a manner of speaking,” the burly man (they call Jayne) says, leaning against the door to smirk at her. “Some of us aren’t here for the war.”

That’s clear enough – he’s carting more weapons on his person than she can count, as he has the entire time she’s been on this ship. Juliet’s still not sure if she’s entirely free here.

“I’m sure you have lots of questions, and that’s fine,” Mal says, “but why don’t you take a day? Walk among the living and maybe it’ll start to make sense again. Remember where you’re from.”

Juliet wants to tell him she’s from Miami where she has a sister and a nephew, and from an island where she has friends and enemies and lost loves, and from another planet altogether, but she just purses her lips. “Alright, Mal,” she answers and follows Kaylee to her quarters.

She doesn’t stay long though. She takes a quick shower to wash the gunk out of her hair and slip into the overalls Kaylee’s left on her bed, the clothes strongly familiar, before she starts exploring the ship.

It’s the first thing Richard did with her when she got to the island. Walk the perimeter; know the Dharma stations so she wouldn’t get lost; understand how limited and large the island actually was.

 _Serenity_ ’s smaller, in a sense, but it has an open feeling that comforts her. Even without sky, she doesn’t feel trapped in a box and she stretches her arms between the struts holding the ship together – she’s too small to make them meet.

She makes her way around the ship twice, runs her hands along its walls, breathes in the recycled air and dodges Jayne when she finds him cleaning his guns.

But Juliet avoids the dinner table, her appetite a low priority, so Mal brings her a plate to her quarters. Secure behind a locked door, Juliet’s lost in thought, trying to remember the names of everyone on the island.

_James.  
Ben.  
Charlotte.  
Daniel.  
Richard.  
katehurleysayidclaire  
James._

She’s sure she’s forgetting something (someone) and is sure it has to do with this _place_ , so when Mal knocks she opens the door forcefully, stares him and his plate of food down.

This scene, too, is familiar.

“Can I help you, Mal?” she asks. It comes out ruder than she’d meant but she’s not sure if she’s a prisoner or a guest yet. Maybe both.

“I brought you dinner,” he explains and looks past her into the room. “Mind if I come in?”  
She’s got no real reason to keep the captain out of his own ship so she steps to the side and lets him pass, watches him put the dinner plate down. 

“It’s hot,” he warns. “It’s not much, just what Kaylee put together from the shepherd’s old stash. Mostly protein,” Mal admits and steps back.

“Thanks,” Juliet says and wants to relax but just stands there awkwardly, unsure what else to say.

 _Shephard_ tugs at her memory too.

“We’re between worlds now,” Mal tells her, sitting on the bed without permission. She follows suit and tries to eat something, hides her surprise. It’s no homemade cheeseburger but it’s not half-bad.

“It may be a week before we make it somewhere safe for you to get off at, but you might want to rethink that last part,” Mal tells her. He pauses and she leans forward despite herself, loose hair slipping out of its knot.

“Why’s that?”

“Because war here isn’t civilized and it’s not contained,” he answers. “Best to be on the move and from what I can tell, you don’t even know how to do that. Not sure what you want but I’d bet it’s not getting killed.”

Juliet smiles, looking away in understanding. 

“I want answers,” she says, meeting his eyes again. “I want to know who you are and where I am and where my friends are.”

“You mean those people we left behind?” Mal asks and she shrugs. “I didn’t see anyone there I knew, but that might mean nothing. And that’s what I have to find out.”

“Well that base is going to be guarded more now,” he muses. “But there are others I’ve heard of. Alliance has all kinds of experiments going on – you might want to ask the doc about that. He might have more answers for you than some lab.”

It reminds her of Simon’s mixed answer and Juliet jumps on it.

“Is that why you’re helping me?” Juliet interjects. “Seriously, you could have left me. Why’d you bring me on board?”

But movement in the corner of her eye has both her and the captain standing to face the first mate – Zoe – at the doorway. “River’s asking for you at the bridge, sir,” Zoe states crisply and the air goes thick as Juliet flicks her gaze between Mal and Zoe, gauging the atmosphere. Mal holds the other woman’s gaze a moment longer before he nods. 

“Tell her I’ll be right up,” he answers and Zoe nods, disappears.

“Mal?” Juliet asks, crossing her arms. She’s done not getting answers and a way out, but Mal just knots his eyebrows before jerking his head toward the doorway.

“You wanna come?” he asks.

 

Space.

Juliet’s never been this close to nothing.

She stares, at a loss for words as the stars swim by and the blackness stretches forever.

The girl piloting the ship can’t be more than nineteen but her hands fly across the console as she crouches in her seat, eyes fixed on the sky.

“This is River Tam,” Mal says by way of introduction and slides into the captain’s chair.

Juliet doesn’t really know what happens while she’s up there – she’s too fascinated by it. And she’s starting to understand why Mal brought her on board.

He’s not very good at flying.


	3. Chapter 3

Juliet decides to stay on the ship (stays on the bridge most of all). Her second day on the ship Inara knocks on her door. It’s been a long while since Juliet’s been shy around anyone, but this woman reminds her of how she used to feel around Edmund – small, less important.

Juliet reminds herself she’s an Other and to grow up.

“I thought you might want some fresh clothes,” Inara says with a smile and opens her bag. “I’m not sure what size you are but these dresses should fit just fine. Kaylee said she has some work clothes you can borrow.”

“Thank you,” Juliet answers and takes the offered bag. “You seem pretty okay with a refugee moving in.”

“Well you’re not our first refugee,” Inara says and holds a dress up to Juliet. “This blue one looks like it’ll fit easily. River was our first, and we’ve had a few stowaways.”

“And you just take on stowaways between jobs?” Juliet asks, pulling the dress on. “It seems like an odd life.” She pauses, considering. “But not a bad one.”

She’s known worse ways to live.

“You’ve already got the hang of it,” Inara teases and motions to Juliet. “Give it a spin.”

The skirt of the dress fans out around her, swimming in the artificial light.

 

Later, Juliet sees River watching her across the ship and feels an inexplicable kinship with the girl. Out of place, on the run, searching for answers. While the rest of the crew shoots hoops in the cargo bay below, Juliet and River stand on opposite edges of the hangar, observing.

It’s good practice.

And even though they never really _talk_ , Juliet has the strangest sense the girl knows what she’s thinking.

(They spend the night on the bridge together in comfortable silence, while the rest of _Serenity_ sleeps. River fiddles with the bearings a time or two while Juliet cocoons in her chair, watching space open up before them.)

 

Kaylee shows up in Juliet’s quarters one afternoon with fresh clothes and Juliet follows her back to the engine room. It’s still all foreign to her so she asks a thousand questions the mechanic’s more than happy to answer.

“I used to work on cars,” Juliet tells her as she fiddles with a piece of equipment she doesn’t have a name for. “Cars, trucks, vans. Nothing that flew though.”

“Well it ain’t so hard,” Kaylee pipes up and takes the piece from her. “It’s an engine like any other, except it’s smarter than what you had before.”

She chatters on and Juliet crawls under _Serenity_ ’s heart, runs her fingers over the cables and metal plates holding her together. Kaylee slides in next to her and shows her where pieces need to be tightened, what’s beyond fixing but the captain refuses to spring for, and how she’s jerry-rigged the rest.

Mal has to come find them for dinner, complaining if there’s that much work to do they shouldn’t be chatting so much. Juliet rolls her eyes at him and wanders past him to the kitchen, Kaylee’s playful retort echoing in the background.

Dinner’s a tense affair though, and Juliet tries not to notice the glances between Mal and Inara across the table. It comes out sooner rather than later and Inara takes her leave of _Serenity_ at the next civilized planet. Nobody dares ask whose idea it was.

War always has a way of coming home.

 

“We’ve got a new job,” Mal announces one morning while Jayne passes coffee mugs around. “Standard hit and haul, a private dealer looking to funnel some money to the resistance.”

“Hit and haul on what?” Zoe asks, although she seems to have guessed the answer and Mal grins wolfishly. “Alliance storage station.”

He lays the blueprint of the facility out between the dishes and points to the left corner. “This is the vault. We’re taking 60 percent on this deal, so there’s plenty to go around between us and the buyer. And this here,” he says, pointing to a long, narrow space on the edge of the map, “is where they store their artillery. Right next to the cashy money, for good reason.”

Jayne raises his hand right before Mal nods and points to him. “That’s you, Jayne. As much as you can haul out of there.”

“Excuse me,” Juliet asks. “But where do I fit in on this?”

Zoe arches an eyebrow at her before asking, “You serious? You want in on a raid?” She looks back at the captain like it relates to some conversation they’ve already had and Juliet shrugs. “Yes, I do. I need something to do, and I handled weapons on the island all the time. I can help Jayne pick out the high-powered ones.”

“You don’t know our weapons though,” Zoe argues, “and you mind telling us what kind of island it was that you used weapons all the time?”

“A special one,” Juliet answers. “Your guns may be different than mine but not all that different. Let me help.”

The captain exchanges a glance with Zoe, who uncrossed her arms and shrugged her agreement, before looking back at Juliet. 

“All right, you’re in,” Mal confirms. “Kaylee, you think you and River can break down their security system from outside?” He swept a disc across the table and Kaylee grabbed it. “I’ll see what we can do, Captain.”

Stepping around the table to talk weapons with Jayne, Juliet found herself intercepted by Zoe, hands on her hips but looking more curious than defensive.

“I just want to make sure you know what we’re up against,” Zoe said quietly, and Juliet nodded, looping her thumbs through her belt buckles. “You have to protect the captain. I understand,” Juliet replies before Zoe smiles briefly, understanding.

“It’s my job, Julie.”

The name sticks.

 

It turns out the Alliance storage facility is compact and sterile-looking, an ominous fortress. Juliet lies in wait with the captain, Zoe and Jayne as they appraise the place. “Looks like two guards at every entrance,” Juliet whispers to the others. “Three entrances, best one to hit is at the back.”

“Target’s nearest the left entrance,” Jayne interrupts. “Faster’s better.”

“Not so,” Zoe argues and points to the configurement. “Left side entrance is at the center, so it’s harder to sneak up on them and instead of two guards to deal with, we’ve got six. Julie’s right.”

“Glad to hear you say that,” Mal interjects. “Alright, me and Zoe’ll go in first, take out the guards at the back. Kaylee, you almost through the security system?”

“Just a minute more, captain,” the girl’s voice announces in their earpieces. “River’s working the locks right now.”

“Well hurry up,” Jayne mutters and adjusts his rifle.

It shoots out with a loud _bang!_ , complete with smoke.

“What… the hell…” Mal yells and ducks as the facility’s targeting system starts firing at their hill. “Do you not know how to set a safety?”

“I forget to take it off!” Jayne yells back and looks down at the valley. “We’ve got six guards coming, probably more inside!”

“Sonofa,” Mal bites back. “Grenade?”

“Grenade!” Jayne answers as the small bomb explodes in front of the men coming up the hill. 

Crouching further down, Juliet winces and turns, angling herself lower and trying to get a look at their surroundings.

They were Alliance, she reminds herself. They’ve got the answers she’ll have.

“Kaylee,” Mal orders into the comm, “shut that targeting system down now!”

“No can do,” the mechanic’s panicked voices comes over the system. “Whole system’s shut down, not allowing any access.”

“Gorram Alliance computers,” the captain growls. “We’ll take it out manually.”

The four invaders race down the hill in turns, Mal taking the lead before Juliet rushed forward to spray cover fire while Zoe and Jayne follow behind them. The weight of the rifle is familiar in her hands and she takes the lead, lets the others cover her as she races forward.

Almost at the bottom, they start to fan out, taking aim at the targeting systems. Swiveling on her feet, Juliet takes out an Alliance guard who wasn’t quite dead before rushing forward to grab his gun. Ducking from the targeting system’s fire in a zig-zag pattern, she hears Jayne call out “Cover me!” before pulling out Vera. He took aim at the first automated gun, shot a narrow pattern, blowing it up into a small ball of fire.

The two remaining guns rotate, pointing at Jayne who was already heading for the left entrance. 

“Juliet, the door’s jammed,” Mal calls and slammed his shoulder against it. “Help me break it down!”

With Jayne and Zoe taking out the mounted guns, Juliet wove her way around the cross-fire pattern, making it to the wall and safety. “Stop,” she orders as Mal ran into the door again. “We’ll shoot it down, if anything.”

Taking aim, Juliet started firing at the door hinges as Mal did the same on the lock side, destroying the access pad. “Help me pull the door back,” she asks, throwing her gun down and dragging at the base of the door while Mal took the top, pulling it away from the wall.

“I think we’re in,” he announces, grinning at her.

“I’m so glad we have you here to tell us these things,” Juliet jokes but smiles. “Time to get to work.”

Mal and Zoe headed for the cash vault while Jayne and Juliet followed until splitting off for the armory. 

 

“Only the high-value stuff,” Mal reminds them before leaving with Zoe. Juliet laughed at the look on Jayne’s face. “Think you can handle it?” she asks and he answers with a short grunt. “Captain and I have different ideas on high-value,” he said. “You going to help or what?”

Looking around at the weapons, Juliet relaxed, recognizing similar designs to what Richard had used. Once a month she’d gone with him into the jungle and he’d train her on something new, practice something old. It was Jacob’s way of keeping his people prepared, he’d explained.

Given the new circumstances, Juliet wasn’t sure there even was a Jacob, but she was still grateful for the background.

“This one,” she began, pointing to a RPG, “and these little ones. I don’t know what you call them now.” They walked down the hall, filling up the bags Jayne was carrying. “How much of this will we keep, do you think?” Juliet asked, carefully put some small guns in her satchel.

“Mal said 60 percent,” Jayne tells her. “Guess that means we should take as much as we can.”

“Mal said 60 of the cash,” Juliet corrects. “He’ll probably give some of this to the Independents, but not all of it.”

“Guess we’ll see, won’t we?” Jayne replies. “You’re not going to keep asking questions, are you?”

“No,” Juliet said. “You couldn’t answer mine anyway. I think we’re done here,” she appraises, looking around the armory. “Nothing else we can carry out anyway.”

Stepping over the body of one of the guards inside, she glances toward the end of the hall before turning back to Jayne. “You head on back,” she says, stepping away. “I’m going to see what else is here.”

The hall’s brightly lit, white walls glaring in her eyes, but there’s nothing much to see. 

Still, she edges along, gun in hand, until she comes across an unmarked door. Kicking it down, Juliet steps inside.

She could see soft glowing lights in the darkness but not much else. Turning the light on her gun on, she did a sweep of the room – there was nothing here but computers.

Alliance computers.

Rushing forward, she swung in front of one of the machines and hit a random key. A blue screen popped up, blinking in the darkness and prompting her for a code. It had access (answers), but she can’t access it.

The keyboard’s in a language she doesn’t know.

Meeting up with the others back outside a few minutes later, she lies and says she didn’t find anything.

 

The client’s three worlds over and it takes them a week to make the trip so Juliet spends the time doing two things: learning to fly and learning the new language. Simon teaches her the alphabet, strange symbols and lines she struggles to associate with anything. During one lesson he stops and looks at her curiously. “You don’t remember any of this?” he asks.

“I don’t think I ever knew it,” Juliet answers. She knows, as far as the crew has thought about it, she grew up somewhere in this system and was brainwashed to think otherwise. If that were the case though, Juliet thinks she would remember _something_. Spaceships, keystrokes, turns of phrases in Chinese.

It’s all foreign to her.

“Alright, so what’s the command for download?” Simon asks, continuing the lesson.

 

By the time they get to New Melbourne Juliet’s good enough to practice flying with River, and Mal lets her help River set the ship down. The sun’s too bright in this atmosphere, blinding her as she pulls back on the thrust while River gently extends the ship’s legs.

From here, Juliet finally feels connected to something. Running her hands over the console, she looks out at the crowded spaceport, then back to what’s right in front of her.

Their client sends a wave to meet him in a local tavern and Juliet volunteers to go with Mal and Zoe, wanting more involvement with the crew after her first taste, curiosity leading her on (even if Mal says the whole town smells of fish). “Three’s a crowd,” Jayne drawls and invites himself. “In case you need some grenades thrown,” he says and Juliet can’t tell if he’s mocking or joking. Could be both.

Mal and Jayne meet with the guy while Juliet and Zoe keep watch at the door, and Juliet can’t help herself, scans the crowd for signs of trouble. “You think whatever backup this guy’s got is wondering how hard it’d be to take us?” she asks Zoe. “It might actually be fun.” 

Zoe doesn’t take her eyes off the crowd but leans over to Juliet and says out of the corner of her mouth, “You know? It would be.”

(Heading back to the ship, Juliet decides to slip away, just to see if she can. Zoe asks where she’s going and Juliet tells her, “I’ll see you at the ship.” She feels Mal and Zoe watch her disappear, and knows they expect never to see her again.

She wanders the market for an hour before she’s staring back up at the sky, finds herself racing to the docks. At least now she knows.)

They pick up another job in New Melbourne, the peaceful kind this time, and Juliet starts to think maybe she doesn’t need answers.

Back on the ship, she dreams of Jack, Kate, Goodwin, racheljulianben. Of James. Wakes in a cold sweat clenching the thin sheet over her body before rushing to the sink, vomits. 

She’s not allowed to forget.


	4. Chapter 4

When they finish their next drop-off at Beaumonde and are on their way to Three Hills for another, they run into a skirmish between the Independents and the Alliance. Mal runs up to the bridge and tells River to swing _Serenity_ into position on the wing of the battle before he throws the ship’s shields up himself.

 _Serenity_ ’s been tested before, but it’s clear to Juliet that he never likes it.

There are mostly small fighters but the Alliance has two warships to the Browncoats’ one, plus _Serenity_ , so River dodges around the fight and picks off Alliance fighters. She taunts the bigger warship at first by flitting _Serenity_ around its gunfire, distracting it from other ships, until Mal reminds her Simon’s on this ship and she might be psychic but _Serenity_ ’s not a bird.

River forgets sometimes; she’s the albatross and that can go both ways.

She doesn’t quite pull back to the rest of the group, though. Instead, River lets Juliet take the controls while she aims the main cannon at the Alliance generator. Her heart pounding with adrenaline, Juliet skims _Serenity_ on the edge of the battle, fighters whirling around them. While River goes on the attack, shooting at the generator over and over, Mal trying not yell warnings too loudly, until the Independent’s ship score a hit on the vessel and River swivels in the captain’s seat to smile at them both.

“Like shooting fish in a barrel,” River says in a strange accent, smirking. Behind Juliet, Mal’s fingers relax from where he was gripping her seat before he takes a steadying breath to look back up at River. 

“Nice flying,” he admits.

Juliet stays in control of the ship until the remnants of the battle are far behind them and Mal comes up to the bridge to remind her about dinner. It’s a new feeling, having this much power returned to her, and she looks back over her shoulder at the bridge when she leaves. 

Mal and Juliet skip the part where they tell the rest of the crew about River’s daredevil tactics and let them enjoy the commission they make after. It’s not much but the Browncoats insist. Mal didn’t start this war and while he’s not expected to finish it, he’s still an ally.

Still, Juliet can tell there’s more to it. The difference in this war from the last is there are no ‘just folk’ now, but allies aren’t the same as insurgents. If the Independents suffer from anything, it’s from a lack of organization across the worlds they control.

They make it to Three Hills.

Word was a software company needed a way to move their technology off-world, but out of the eye of the Alliance. To pay for the war the Alliance had increased tariffs, taxes and transport fees on anything that moved. It was also a convenient way to prevent movement between worlds and if outlaws were caught, they were given the choice of working in a prison camp or joining the Alliance army. Most chose the army.

Three Hills had been hit first, with a prison camp set up in their own backyard to remind locals of their place. Some few still resisted, but in secret and where they could. This company was one of them.

Mal had River set _Serenity_ down in one of the valleys far out of town where they could meet their client and load the goods overnight. They would already be gone by morning, with no one outside the valley the wiser.

But when the crew heads down the ramp to greet their client, they walk into a brawl.

Jayne rushes forward, ready to join in, before Mal grabs the back of his shirt while Zoe fires off three shots into the air. “What’s going on here?” she yells into the melee.

A short redhead marches out of the dust cloud, toting a rifle pointed straight at Mal.

“Captain Reynolds,” she says, “how not nice it is to see you again.”

Feeling more protective than anything else, Juliet points her gun back at the girl, who swings her rifle toward Juliet, then back to Mal. “I bet you still thought I was in a dumpster.”

“I’m sorry, but who the hell is this?” Juliet asks in a loud voice. “Do we know her?”

“Not in the strictest sense,” Mal replies. “Juliet, meet YoSaffBridge, crazy lady extraordinaire and thief amateur. Saffron for short.”

“Amateur enough to leave you naked in a desert,” the woman retorts, cocking her gun back as Juliet raised an eyebrow at Zoe at that revelation. _Later_ , Zoe mouths back.

“Old times,” Mal answers and steps forward, gun pointed square at Saffron’s chest. “Now not that I don’t have the fondest memories of beating you, but what are you doing at my drop-site?”

“Not your drop-site,” Saffron said. “It was ours first, until _your_ partners showed up. Do a little recon next time.”

“Enough of this,” Juliet interrupts, taking a few careful steps before she angled her rifle between the captain and the redhead. “It’s our drop site now. Finders keepers,” she adds and waved her gun at Saffron. “Time to find a new one.”

“Oh please honey, you and your bitty army aren’t going to make that happen,” Saffron mocks. Annoyed now, Juliet raised her gun to fire a warning shot before the smaller woman rushed forward, barreling Juliet over, and they both went down.

In the background, Juliet heard Mal sigh. “Not again.”

The other woman was a _scratcher_ so Juliet went with instinct and kneed her in the stomach, getting on top as her opponent went for Juliet’s hair. She lunged forward with a head butt and as Saffron spun backward Mal yanked Juliet back as Jayne went for Saffron. Dimly, 

Juliet heard Zoe call out, “Kick her ass, Julie!”

She hardly needs the motivation.

“Enough!” Mal yells, his breath loud against her ear. “Clear out, Saffron, we’ve got business to do.”

“And I’ve got a job for you instead!” Saffron retorts back, struggling against Jayne’s grip.   
This time it was Zoe who leveled her gun at the woman with a sigh. 

“Sir? We’re not doing this again, are we?” Zoe asks, dismay in her voice.

“Not doing this again,” Mal answered hotly, pulling out his sidearm. “Just in case,” Juliet heard him mutter next to her as Jayne spun the woman away from the ship.

“Just like Malcolm Reynolds to throw away a fortune,” Saffron called back, not quite leaving, and Juliet slowly pulled out her pistol, letting it hang by her side. “Can’t let bygones be bygones.”

“Sir?” Zoe questions as Mal lowered his gun a fraction. 

“I’ll keep her in the crate the whole time,” he promised.

 

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Zoe grumbles at Mal later as they load up the boxes of spices and coffee Saffron was smuggling off world. “You’re going to end up naked in a desert again and this time, we’re not coming for you.”

Juliet watched from the other side of the cargo bay where she and Kaylee were lugging their own boxes.

“She’s not even coming with us,” Mal argues back. “What could she possibly do?”

“Feed us to the Alliance, have a lousy buyer on the other end, or _try to steal our ship_ , sir,” Zoe returns and swung the last box into place. “She does like to do that.”

“But this time we’ve got a psychic flying our ship,” Mal says, trying to reason with her before noticing how rigid her body had gone. “Sir,” was all she said in reply before stepping an inch from his face, “I’d rather not have the psychic, if you know what I mean.”

A few feet away, Juliet spied Zoe’s hand on her holster and inched closer. “Mal?” she asks, unsure and never having seen this behavior before. “Maybe you should – ”

“This is how the ship runs now,” Mal interrupts, trying to diffuse the situation. “Zoe, we have a job to do. Can you do it?”

“There’s always a job,” she answers, hand dropping from her holster (out of the corner of her eye, Juliet sees Jayne’s hand drop from his as well, and wonders how many times this had nearly happened before). 

 

River sets the course for Dyton and the crew settles into a familiar routine, except for two. Juliet finds Mal alone on the bridge, staring at the expanse of space flying past them, and takes the copilot’s seat to watch him (says nothing).

“She blames me for her husband’s death,” Mal states in a low voice, not looking at her. “Probably right to – didn’t give them much choice, back then, and I couldn’t lose my pilot anyway.”

“It still sucks,” Juliet answers when he goes quiet and he glances at her briefly.

“You could say that.”

“What happens if she snaps?” Juliet asks, just above a whisper, voicing the awful thought nobody wanted to consider. “Will you fight her?”

Mal leans forward to switch over some controls, stalling before he answers. “I have no idea.”

Curling up in her chair, she lapses into silence and doesn’t press him for any more answers, just stares out at the stars and wonders if home is even out there (moves on to looking for other, more familiar stars now).

 

Dyton’s a small colony with a distinctive accent (and smell and taste). Grease seems to linger in the air and the noise from the marketplace follows the crew all the way to their buyer. Jayne and River stay behind to guard the cargo while Mal, Zoe and Juliet thread their way through a maze of alleys and narrower streets to find the right door.

Something about the route seems familiar to Juliet (she shakes it off, watches Mal rap against the door with his knuckles in a coded rhythm). A short man opens the door. He looks them over with a grunt before letting them in and leading them down a dark set of stairs.

The din from the streets above disappears as they go down longer and longer staircases. For the first time since she woke up in a lab, Juliet’s neck prickles with fear. She holds her rifle strap tighter and follows the captain; Zoe follows her.

Beyond the final door is a grubby little man in a grubby little hat and Mal’s exclamation of “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Fluorescent lights flood the room and a tinny fan blows in the corner.

“I had to relocate,” says Badger, “after all that nasty business you mixed up on Persephone.”

“What, the swordfight?” Mal asks as Zoe and Juliet flank him. “Zoe, for the record, you were right. We’re never working with Saffron again.”

“Thank you sir,” came the clipped response. “Glad you think so.”

“Not the swordfight, dumbass. I mean that recording you leaked and started a war with!” Badger yells shortly before composing himself again. Standing as tall as he could and straightening his hat, Badgers added, “Not very business-like, _Captain_ Reynolds. Still fighting that war, I see.”

“Just here to do actual business,” Mal answers evenly. “If you still do any, that is.”

Sneering, Badger came around his desk to face Mal directly before replying. “Depends what you’ve got to sell. Wouldn’t be anything _illegal_ , would it?”

“Not unless you set up something _illegal_ with your partner,” Mal retorts. “Never even opened the goods – that’s our policy when working with criminals now.”

“Strange policy to have with yourself,” Badger mocks, “but I suppose it’s good enough. Where are the goods?”

Mal shrugs. “Being moved to a secure location you’ll have as soon as we see some coin. If that’s good enough.”

From where she was standing, Juliet could see another door, different from the one they’d just come through, and the prickling sense returned. Something about this place was too familiar. With a quick glance at Zoe, whose eyes were tracking Badger’s goons, Juliet slips into the shadows against the wall and inches toward the door before sliding through it.

All that was past the door was another staircase leading into more gloom but she knew this place (she just knew). Pursuing more than a hunch now, she takes the stairs quickly and quietly. They lead not to a door but to a hatch at the bottom and a twisted feeling in her stomach formed a hard knot of warning. Ignoring it, Juliet wrenches it open and stands above the opening, sickened and triumphant.

In stark contrast to the grimy level she was standing on, a rung led down into a sterile and brightly lit floor, with long white halls and rows and rows of doors. With a glance up the staircase she’d just come down, Juliet swings herself over the rung and, pushing her braided hair back, slides down the ladder with barely a squeak.

The hallway seems empty but Juliet could practically feel eyes on her (guesses at cameras and secret guards waiting for a higher command). Without a better idea, she tries the first door she comes to and finds it locked. So is the next one, and the next, all the way down the hall until she turned a corner and found a door slightly ajar. “What are you doing?” she mutters to herself, but pushes the door open anyway.

Rows of people in vertical tubes line the walls, asleep or worse as they hang suspended in an off-yellow liquid.

Juliet remembers (remembers waking and almost dying to sleep again before Mal pulled her out). 

The room holds dozens of people, people who she doesn’t recognize but understands completely.

In the darkness, a hand clutches at her shoulder and then her mouth before she can scream.

“What are you doing down here?” Mal hisses in her ear and she tries to calm down. “Badger has his men looking everywhere for you – if they find you down here we’re dead.”

“I recognize this place,” Juliet gasps against his hand and tries to explain. “I think this is like the place I was at.”

Mal drops his hand from her mouth to her other arm and stares. “I think you might be right about that,” he mutters, “but they _can’t_ find you here.”

“What about all these people?” Juliet asks desperately, searching the room for a power switch or _something_. “We can’t just leave them here.”

“We don’t know what’s going on,” Mal reasons, hand dropping from her mouth. “We can’t just break out a bunch of zombies right now. You barely made it yourself.” Turning her around to face him, he met her eyes to make his point. “Not right now – but we will figure this out,” he tells her. “But not right now.”

Suddenly, Juliet could hear growingly loud voices just outside their door and pulled Mal with her between the tubes of sleeping people and the wall as a guard came in and flooded the room with light.

“It looks clear,” she could hear a gruff voice say into a radio.“Locked down to Room 415.”

The door swings behind the guard him with a _click_ and as the lights go out, Mal curses in the darkness. “Shit.”

“Never heard you swear before, Captain,” Juliet teases as they stand in the darkness, lit only by the strange fluid in the tubes. Making their way over to the door, she tries the handle and sighs, kicking at the door. “Definitely locked. Plan B?”

Mal shrugs and pulls out his gun, firing a shot before tackling Juliet to the floor as it rebounds and shoots around the room until the bullet loses its momentum. The tubes repel it as well, and the inhabitants sleep undisturbed. 

“Gorram it,” he swears. “Guess we’ll just have to find another way out of here.”

Feeling around in the darkness, Juliet trips over something and swears before Mal catches her by the elbow. “Come on, Juliet, let’s find you a way out of here.”

“I hate this place,” Juliet whispers before Mal takes her hand again. 

“Well, nobody’s getting left behind,” he says. “Just have to see where this room leads.” She couldn’t even see his face in the gloom played along. “Oh yes, the back door. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Alliance always has a back door,” Mal tells her. “Learned that during the war. Pretty useful trick.”

Juliet lets it drop as they make their cautious way across the room. “Sorry if I screwed up our business deal,” she says instead and feels Mal shrug. “Don’t worry about it. Jayne’ll beat the cash out of Badger if he has to – we want to get paid, Badger wants the goods. Nothing funny about it this time. I just hate the guy, you know?” he says, rambling a bit, and Juliet smiles.

“I know what you mean,” she says. “It was a woman for me, though – Harper. She was always trying to get information out of me for someone else.” Juliet pauses as they turned a corner, then adds, “I wonder if she’s in a place like this.”

“She might not be real,” Mal points out. “Might have just been something the Alliance programmed to find out what they wanted.”

“That would be worse,” she says and reaches a hand out before her. “To have all of it be false?”

“Well you’re clearly not the only one they wanted to mess with,” Mal answers, distracted. “Must have a good reason for that. I think there’s another door here.”

“It’s locked,” Juliet tells him and feels around the door. “But I think there’s a light switch – aha!”

A single light illuminated the wing they were in. While the door was not a way out, Juliet couldn’t help but relax. “Mal, look up.”

A grate created an exit strategy for two people, and with Mal hoisting her up, Juliet shot the fastenings off the grate to shove it aside. “We’re in!” she declares and wriggles her way up into the air shaft. Leaning over and bracing her legs against a pipe, she locks arms with Mal to pull him up after her.

“Thanks,” he gasps when he crawls up, and she smiled again. 

“Thanks for coming after me.”

Following the airshaft in a general up direction, they make their way from level to level until they come out on the top of a building, and look down to the streets of Dyton several stories below. “Guess we came a little far,” Juliet sighs but points out a fire escape. “What happens if we meet Badger’s people?”

“You came out for fresh air and we just missed you,” Mal answers. “Good cover story,” she agrees. “Back to _Serenity_?”

“Got to see how the job went,” he reminds her.


	5. Chapter 5

When they get back to _Serenity_ , Juliet sits down with Simon and tries to persuade him to let her talk with River about what happened at the Alliance academy. There a thousand good reasons for it but Simon’s too afraid his sister will relapse into fear and psychosis to allow it. Juliet can’t really blame him, but she looks at River and wants to know what she knows (memories and echoes).

Instead, she spends all her spare time pulling up information on the Cortex and saving it to the databook she bought with her savings. She had a computer back in Miami but there was nothing on the Dharma computers Ben couldn’t access if he wanted to, and it’s refreshing to have her private space returned to her. Files and files of old news articles and research reports end up neatly organized and strewn in open windows across her screen. She’s looking for something, anything, that could explain why she ended up floating in a tube of liquid dreaming she was in another life.

All things considered, she can’t even be sure her name is Juliet Burke (Juliet Carlson, she decides).

Juliet searches for herself, all the same, and isn’t surprised when no results show up. The Alliance has either deleted every record of her, or she never existed.

And then, she starts searching for reports of missing women. There are thousands of them for the time span she’s looking in. She starts with the current year and works backward, trying to find a single reference to a woman fitting her description among the other women from the other worlds, other lives. Unsure how old she is, but guessing in her thirties, she backtracks through two decades until she decides the Alliance wouldn’t bother with children (and if they would, she doesn’t want to know).

It takes a few months and a few jobs, but in the end, she collects 842 names of women who might be her.

Mal catches her at it one night when she’s left her cabin door open.

“What are you doing there?” he asks casually, leaning against the door frame.

“How long have you been there?” she asks, surprised someone came down here. River and Simon stay in their cabins and the rest of the crew is bunked for the night.

“Making rounds,” Mal answers and steps inside, peering at the papers she’s printed out. “Are those old news waves? For what… missing women?”

“I’m trying to find out what happened,” Juliet says without looking up. “I’m the only one who can, right? If there’s any information out there, I should be the one to find it.”

Mal stands there a moment longer before suggesting, “Have you talked with River?”

“Simon won’t let me,” Juliet answers. “He’s afraid she’ll relapse.”

“I mean, as a psychic,” Mal says. “She sees things – could maybe Read you.”

“That’s real?” Juliet asks skeptically and Mal nods, leaning against the wall. “Real enough. But I could help you sort through these for now,” he offers and Juliet looks up from her work to make space for him to sit on her bed.

“There are _842_ of them,” Juliet warns as Mal pushes his fingers through his hair, looking at her piles of missing women. “No time to waste then,” he tells her.

She could swear he actually smiles.

It starts a pattern where they meet in the kitchen every night. After the rest of the crew is asleep, they go over names and check the status of the person in question. Some women have been recovered, some confirmed dead, and some are still missing. Juliet points out the dead could be lies or a cover-up but agrees there’s no point in jumping to conclusions until they’ve gone through the women who are still missing.

Then begins the long process of waving the families of the missing – those who are still alive. Every time, she uses the same story with a different name, just in case someone’s listening. Juliet’s lost her memory and is trying to find her family; can they tell her about their missing daughter, wife, sister?

Meanwhile, the war rages on.

Rumors have started to surface about other planets like Miranda, planets where settlers were experimented on like lab rats. Nobody’s quite sure where these planets are or what the experiments are, but the crew of _Serenity_ knows enough to not summarily dismiss them. And if they’re true, if there are more planets like Miranda, the Alliance might have trouble keeping its army together, let alone fight a war.

A laboratory here and there is par for the course with the Alliance; a whole other planet would mean their downfall.

It doesn’t take long before Mal gets a wave from the Independents’ brass, offering the job to Mal; if his crew finds a planet or something like it they’ll be paid in more gold than they’ve ever seen. Mal doesn’t full believe them (despite the way Jayne’s eyes light up) but takes the job anyway. A stipend for the months while they look plus any kind of payoff in the end is enough to keep them flying.

That’s all he’s asking right now.

He talks it over with Zoe before telling the rest of the crew; they’ll do be doing a tour of the Rim planets, one by one until they find something (anything). Jayne looks bored by the idea but River visibly relaxes and Mal tries not to contemplate what burdens she still carries. Afterward, he asks Zoe why she backed the idea and she meets his eyes for the first time in a long while.

“Because we’re finally doing something about it all, sir.”

 _Because Wash didn’t die for nothing_ goes unsaid.

They start at Whitefall where they expect to find nothing and explore each moon before moving onto the next planet. It’s a long process and Juliet counts her first anniversary on the ship before they’ve made it halfway through the list. Still, for all their searching, there’s little or nothing to find. They all start to wonder if the rumors have any truth to them or if people are just looking for another monster under the bed, having found so many already.

It’s not until they’re exploring the moons around Miranda, a sick tension in all their guts, does Juliet have a sudden idea. Pulling Mal away from the bridge she tells him what she’s suddenly sure the Alliance is up to.

“Mal, what if they’re not hiding a test out in the middle of nowhere, where nobody’s looking?” she asks in an excited whisper. “What if they’re hiding it right under everyone’s noses?” 

He looks at her like she’s gone momentarily mad.

“A Central planet? They’d have to be out of their minds,” he argues back.

“Maybe not a Central planet, alright,” she admits. “But what about an Alliance controlled planet, like Verbena or Boros? Where nobody would think to look, because everything else looks so normal. So obvious.”

He’s still looking at her like she’s crazy, but less so now.

“That would mean hundreds of thousands of test subjects,” he warns. “That would be a lot harder to expose.”

“And that’s why’d they do it,” Juliet continues in a hush. “They wouldn’t make the same mistake twice, right?”

The look on his face mirrors hers. “And why nobody noticed, because they’re part of it,” Mal rushes out, suddenly exploring the idea. “ _Huh choo-shung huh tza-jiao duh_!”

“I still don’t speak Chinese,” she reminds him and glances back to where River, Kaylee and Jayne are talking on the bridge. “Should we tell them?

“We’re here – may as well check out this rock before we see if the entire universe has gone mad,” Mal says.

 

Now an expert at research, Juliet puts her own history aside and begins digging through Alliance records. River joins her without asking a single question and Juliet sets aside her doubts as to River’s psychic ability. Together they pour over planets controlled by the Alliance and planets forgotten by the Alliance. Used to a solar system of nine planets, Juliet’s still boggled by the sheer size of the White Sun and Blue Sun systems, but slowly, they take them apart piece by piece. There’s no sense worrying about how easy it would be to get lost in a universe this big.

Eventually, River and Juliet start to see a pattern.

The Independents already knew about the labs. People experimented on in brightly lit dungeons, their minds torn away from them in the name of science and purity. Control. That was the spark that started the first war, but there wasn’t enough information to keep it going. Just why that was is becoming clear now as Juliet pieces together her lab with the lab on Dyton, and with the Alliance Academy River was imprisoned at.

They’re in every system, on every major planet. One lab to test a theory and then an unsuspecting population to run it on. They haven’t learned from Miranda at all.

“I don’t understand,” Juliet says to River. “Why there weren’t more errors? Why didn’t more people didn’t go crazy?”

“It would depend on the experiment,” River explains, tapping her pen against the viewing screen. “And how much testing they did in the lab first. If they made the people dumber or more afraid, the opposite effect would be smarter people, braver people.”

The thought, the implications, make Juliet sick to her stomach. People like River; people like the Independents. She pushes it aside, keeps working.

“Is there any way to test for the effects?” she asks instead and looks at the list of possible targets – civilized planets with potentially millions of victims.

“It would be difficult. Not impossible,” River answers. “The challenge would be finding a baseline sample of the human population when the entire human population has been tampered with. Not impossible,” she repeats, a slightly mad look about her.

“What about information from Earth-that-was?” Juliet asks. 

River looked at her in confusion. “Data?” she echoes curiously.

“Data, history, the original settlers who came here from Earth,” Juliet said. “Before the Alliance even existed. It’s a long shot, but it’d be worth it.”

“Information that old is not available though,” River points out. “If it is, the Alliance probably has it.”

“Of course they have it,” Juliet agrees. “Or at least data from before they ever meddled with us, which means we’ll have to take it from them.”

She doesn’t think of it at first, but it’s the first time she owns that she’s one of them.

They present the idea to Mal as normally as they can, trying to show the importance of getting such information without appearing desperate. All they had to do, Juliet explains, is to land on Londinium, break into a top-security Alliance records facility, break out, and disappear into the crowd until enough time passes for them to leave the planet again. Of course, River said, they wouldn’t risk taking _Serenity_ and losing her; they’d take another ship.

Mal looked at them as if they’d grown spare heads (in the corner, Zoe stares him down). 

He agrees to their plan.

 

They don’t get a ship through the Independents, as Mal’s sure it’ll trace back and they’ll be shot down before they even get into orbit. Instead, he sends a wave to Monty who leaves a ship for them on Three Hills far, far away from where Saffron was last seen. It’s a small group going to Londinium, just the five who need answers and those who want payback. It overlaps some, but there’s room enough for Mal, Zoe, Juliet, Jayne and River to cram into the ship and pretend they like each other.

“So,” Mal says, voicing a thought everyone’s had since River and Juliet broke the news, “what are the chances any of us are infected? Or affected?”

“It would depend on where you grew up and where you spent the most time,” Juliet answers, being completely honest. “Less populated or less civilized planets would make it harder for the Alliance to blend in, so growing up on Shadow you were probably safe.” She pauses, looking at River, who spoke for herself.

“I grew up on Osiris, which makes me a likely target,” River says. “The probability of that impacting the job is less than five percent, as we have no evidence these experiments would involve sleeper training yet.”

“Yet,” Jayne points out, slinging his gun over his shoulder and crouching against the wall. “Could you have found a smaller ship, Mal?”

“Monty found it and we’re lucky to have it,” Mal insists but looks over at River. “You can fly her, right?”

“I can love her,” River answers and Jayne snorts. 

“Crazy as ever,” he mutters but Mal, for the most part, relaxes. There’ll be time enough for worrying once they get to Londinium.

 

The first thing Juliet notices about the planet is how much it smells. Once, before her parents divorced, they’d gone as a family to New York City. She still remembers how tall the skyscrapers were and how they shone, but how they also trapped the heat and magnified the stench of the sewers. 

For a moment, she forgets that might not have been real (and how would the Alliance know how New York City smelled anyway?)

The capital city is obviously the seat of power, with its own gleaming towers and rows of guards lining the streets around Parliament, but Juliet is unfazed. What they’re looking for is far from the center of attention, and deep below.

If there’s one thing she learned from her time on the island, it’s that the best place to keep secrets is below the surface, be it underwater or underground. Things seem just the same here and she wanders ahead of the group, habitually scouting.

Crossing to the other side of the street, she sees Miles Straume hailing a taxi.

At first, she doesn’t even think about it and then jerks suddenly back around, trying to spot him. _Miles_. But he’s already in the taxi, driving away, and when she starts to rush after him Jayne grabs her arm and hisses, “Where do you think we’re going? Pay attention!”  
Across the street, Alliance soldiers are marching to some unknown destination and eyeing the crowd for any sign of trouble. In vain, Juliet watches Miles’ taxi disappear into the city, lost.

But he exists.

“There was a man,” she tries to explain to her four companions, still in shock, “a man I knew while I was asleep. On the island. He was real,” Juliet says and scans the crowd as though it might yield up Rachel or Richard or even Ben, at this point.

One familiar face is better than none though, so she tries to calm her racing heart with deep breaths and assesses where they are.

“How much further?” she asks and Mal checks the map. “About a mile from here. We can change when we get closer. Don’t know if librarians travel in a herd or not.”

Behind him, River bursts out laughing (she's still crazy).

The building next to the Alliance Department of Records is an old theatre where they’ve planned to stash their street clothes until they return. The top floor is a storage unit for film discs and works perfectly as a hideout. They enter the room as five civilians; they exit the room as two janitors, one in-house security guard, and two record keepers with full clearance passes.

“You’re getting pretty good at making these,” Jayne tells River, who rolls her eyes at him and adjusts her glasses on a chain.

“Just remember, little albatross, when we’re inside we follow my lead,” Mal reminds her and looks down the hall. “Now which way is out?”

 

They make it inside the records building with little trouble, though Juliet notices Mal keeps an extra eye on Jayne, so she does too. River leads the way, having memorized the blueprint, and takes them to the back of the building where Juliet slides her ident card through the security panel.

There’s a tense moment where it’s unclear if River’s hack works, and then the door slides open.

Jayne’s the first to speak. “Huh. I don’t get it.”

“We wouldn’t really expect you to,” Mal answers and steps over the threshold, following River who’s drinking in the sights, sounds and smells of the labyrinth before them.

“What do you think we’re supposed to do?” Juliet asks, following Zoe before the door slides shut behind them. “Are we supposed to solve the maze?”

“We’re in the maze,” Zoe guesses and Mal nods in agreement. “What do you think, River?”

“It’s a non-form, non-static maze designed to store and conceal data,” River chimes and turns to face the others. “I’m not sure what to do now.”

It’s an odd statement for River to make, but Jayne swings his large gun (Vera, Juliet thinks she heard him call it) over his shoulder and looks down each possible pathway. “Well if she don’t know how to solve it, I don’t see the point,” he says. River ignores him and heads down the left corridor.

A greenhouse ceiling hangs above them, with topiary plants and exotic-looking birds flying about. Juliet didn’t see anything like this from outside but heads after River, running her fingers along the plush green walls. They’re just tall enough to foil attempts to climb them and find the center, but the material is squishy and her fingertips sink into the material before she walks further along.

River turns right at the next corner and left at the one after that. She doesn’t seem to be following any set path but Juliet guesses if getting out of a maze means always turning the same direction, getting closer to the center might require the opposite. Then again, River’s logic escapes them all. For all the group knows, she might not be following any pattern except one to the tune she’s humming.

“Isn’t it odd how nobody’s come to stop us?” Juliet whispers to Zoe and the other woman looks behind them before answering. “Maybe they are and we can’t see, or maybe this ain’t alarmed for a reason. Or,” she added as an afterthought, “maybe our security cards actually worked.”

Juliet stifles a laugh. “I forgot things can actually go to plan.”

River forges a path for them and Juliet loses track of time, between the going forward and checking their backs, but nobody comes after them and she lets her mind wander. Tries to remember anything familiar about this place and comes up blank.

They follow River further and further in a downward spiral, until Jayne’s grumbling that she’s as lost as the rest of them. Just when Juliet’s ready to actually agree with him, River stops at a seemingly identical corner and sinks her hands into the walls.

“It’s here,” she says, inexplicably, and Juliet looks at Mal (he shrugs back). It’s River.

“The source,” River explains and shuts her eyes, focuses on something within the walls and her hands move in unfamiliar patterns, turning unseen wheels.

The mirage disappears (the maze falls away) to reveal a room full of computers lined against one wall and file cabinets lined up against another.

“That’s not natural,” Jayne points out helpfully and Mal sighs, pushes past him to where River’s standing by a vault-like door. “That’s why we have River,” he says and Jayne shuts up.

Zoe’s over by one of the computers, bypassing the security and running a check on what the room’s for. “This is the place,” she announces. “All the old scientific records the Alliance keeps, and then some.”

But River’s focused on the vault door, ten feet high and five feet wide, titanium steel and probably a foot thick to boot. Stretching her arms across its width, she draws herself against it. “More secrets,” she tells them and Jayne cocks his gun at the door until Mal arches an eyebrow at him, motions for Juliet to forward with him.

“There’s more to us than gunfire,” he says with satisfaction and she smiles. “Explosives?”

“Of a sort,” he admits and hands her three. “Stick them near the hinges. Best to let the weak spots do as much of our work for us as we can.”

The bombs make a sizzling noise as the fuses burn to their ends and the group rushes to the far end of the hall, ducking under the computer stands to hide from the explosion. It’s loud, leaves a ringing in Juliet’s ears, and she’s sure someone heard that (hopes they don’t know a shortcut through the maze).

But it worked. The door’s broken open and Juliet feels a rush of joy she can’t pin down, the thrill of success.

Mal and Zoe take the door first, checking the perimeter, and when they call the all clear, Jayne and Juliet pick up the rear with River wandering behind them.

This room is not like the others.

It’s dimly lit, but Juliet spots a desk lamp in a center table and switches it on. That, with the light from the hall, gives them a glimpse of the tall filing cabinets crowding the small room. It’s barely more than a closet but even still Juliet feels a wash of despair, all her hope from a moment ago disappearing.

She always forgets about River's talents.

The girl walks across the room, eyes shut and hand sliding against the cabinets while Zoe and Jayne keep an eye on the outside corridor. “Mind hurrying it up?” Jayne bites before Mal throws him a look. “It’s done when it’s done.”

River stops at one of the cabinets near the back wall and tugs open a drawer near the bottom, her skirt crumpling against the polished floor.

“It’s in here,” she confirms and Juliet’s next to her in a moment, rifling through the paper documents. “Well, they’re definitely old,” Juliet says and pulls out another file. “How many, River?”

“Why not take them all and get the hell out of here?” Jayne suggests from the blown out doorway before Zoe half-threateningly points her pistol at him. “Or, not.”

Kneeling next to Juliet, River stares at the pile of papers strewn around them, running her hands over them. “I don’t get how you do this,” Juliet sighs before River looks at her as if it’s obvious.

“By looking,” she says before going back to searching. “Help me.”

“Damn,” Juliet replies but relaxes at River’s curved smile. At least she wasn’t completely weird.

 

They end up taking only the files River and Juliet decide hold the most scientific data and analysis, a few drawers-worth crammed in their research satchels. There are pages and pages of raw data, of height and weight and health, and even notations on the occurrence of eye color, hair color, and genetic history in the sampled population.

What surprises Juliet the most is how the information isn’t electronic. In a weird way it makes sense. Harder to duplicate, harder to expose.

“How do we get out of here?” Juliet asks, slinging her bag across her shoulder and pulling her lab coat tighter around her. It feels oddly familiar and comforting, which is in of itself not all that comforting.

“River?” Mal asks but the girl just shrugs, whatever was guiding her useless now. “Alright, this way then,” Mal decides and leads them down the hallway. “Remember the cover story.”

“That the researchers who work here got lost and the janitor came with the security to save them?” Juliet replies, amused at the total lack of thought. 

“Or we could improvise,” Mal answers and grins back at her and Juliet flushes. “I like that idea better,” she confirms, feels herself go redder at the look Zoe and River are sharing.

First, they have to make it out of here alive.

 

It’s as complicated a maze out of the records room as it was in, but Juliet never expected them to get out without any confrontation.

She just didn’t expect it to be Ethan.

He’s standing at the end of the hall and just past him, Juliet can see sunlight. It’s a window, not a door, but she’ll take what she can get right now. When Jayne and Zoe keep walking she holds them back, knows the ruse won’t work in this case (doesn’t know how she knows, just does).

“Ethan?” she asks cautiously. “Ethan Rom?”

He doesn’t answer her but his mouth twists in a dangerous smirk and Juliet shivers at the sight. She’s never seen him like this.

“I thought you were dead,” she tries again and this time he takes a confident step forward, ignoring her companions and keeping his eyes fixed on her.

“You have no purpose here,” Ethan states flatly, hand dropping to his sidearm, and with that Juliet’s had enough. 

“I know this man from… wherever I was before,” she tells the others. “I have no idea what he’s doing here.”

“I’m getting that,” Mal says from behind her and takes a step forward. “You want to get out of the way, son?” he asks while Ethan circles toward Mal. “Captain Reynolds, I’m glad we had a chance to meet. I’ve heard so much about you and… your kind.”

“Zoe, I think this guy is an operative,” Mal calls from where he’s positioned himself between the group and Ethan.

“Looks like it, sir,” Zoe confirms and Juliet looks back and forth between the two. “What the hell are you talking about?” she asks loudly and River slips her hand through Juliet’s. 

“Get ready to run,” the girl whispers next to her.

“You know who we are,” Mal continues. “What about you?”

“I have no name or identity you would recognize,” Ethan answers, his eyes flickering toward Juliet. She has the weirdest feeling they’ve _trained_ for this together.

Juliet’s about to suggest they just run for it when Mal takes another step closer. Ethan swings into action, turning and kicking Mal in the chest, and sending him in a reverse stumble toward 

Jayne who pushes Mal back into the fight and races for the operative.

“Damnit,” Juliet curses and races to where Ethan’s actually putting up a good fight. “He’s stalling!” she yells and slams the side of her hand against his throat while he’s busy fighting Jayne. Ethan chokes and reaches out to punch Juliet in the stomach but Jayne pounds a fist on the top of his skull and he slumps to the floor, motionless.

“Is he dead?” Juliet worries and drops next to him before Zoe pulls her back. “We don’t have time!” the other woman argues but Juliet grabs for his wrist, checking his pulse. “He's not dying this time,” Juliet fights, and Zoe lets her pause for just a moment before Juliet nods, convinced he’ll live. “Okay, let’s go,” Juliet says, jumping up to follow the others. Zoe was right; they didn’t have the time.

Mal and Jayne have already thrown the window open and attached the rappelling rope to the windowsill for them all to slide down. Juliet watches River push off against the wall and prays nobody’s watching for strange people climbing down the side of a building in broad daylight. Zoe goes next, then Jayne. Juliet takes one last look at Ethan before she disappears over the edge, with Mal taking the rear.

“What was that about?” Mal asks once they disappear into the crowd before heading back to the theatre attic. “You said you knew him?”

“On the island,” Juliet tries to explain. “Wherever that was – in my head, in my past, I’m not sure. I just know we worked together. I think I helped his mother give birth – it’s all very fuzzy in my head right now.”

“Well something’s not right,” Mal says and eyes the crowd. “It’s about time we got some answers about that lab we took you from.”

“I’d say that’s about right,” agrees Miles, stepping out of an alleyway and smoking a cigarette.


	6. Chapter 6

The crew sits around the kitchen table in _Serenity_ and Juliet waits impatiently while Miles lights another cigarette, takes a languorous puff.

“Do you remember me, Miles?” she asks and he turns in his chair, smirks at her. “You bet I do, doll. I got out before they wiped me, same as you.”

“Wiped me?” she asks and he sighs.

“Do you know _anything_?” he asks with exasperation, and Juliet can only shake her head. “I woke up in a tube, floating in strange liquid, and Mal pulled me out. But it’s been a year and we haven’t really known where to look,” she admits.

“That’s a terrible start to your story,” Miles concludes. “Well you’re here today because this Mal walked in at the right moment, from what I’ve been able to gather. They pulled me because I could hear past the level they had us on – that’s what all that ‘I can hear dead people’ nonsense was – but before they could wipe me the lab got hit by some Browncoats and I got away.” 

Taking another draw of his cigarette, he winks at River across the table. “My story’s much better,” he finishes.

“The level they had you on?” Zoe asks and Miles nods but doesn’t elaborate. “You don’t have anything fresher here, do you? Cigs here reek more than I remember.” Juliet reaches out to kick his chair, dangling precariously on one leg and Miles has to slam a hand on the kitchen table to catch his balance.

“Tell the story,” she insists and he snorts. “Bitchy as ever. So yeah, the level they had us on. I did some digging when I got out – there’s an underground movement trying to get folks like you and me out of there,” Miles says, gesturing with his hands. “Not linked up with the war so much, just trying to stop the g-men from doing what g-men do.”

“Sound familiar?” Mal asks Simon, and the doctor nods. “The group that helped me get River wasn’t organized, didn’t have a name. They just got people out.”

“Pretty much,” Miles agreed. “Apparently the big shots at the Alliance thought the best way to deal with dissidents was to plug them – us – into some mainframe where we thought we were alive, but in reality we were just floating around until they found a better use for us.”

“Why not just kill us?” Juliet asks, a sick pit in her stomach, and crosses her arms against herself. “It seems rather elaborate.”

“One reason was to monitor our brainwaves,” Miles points out. “See if there was a way to map the rebel factor and work around it. I hear they’ve done stuff like that before.”

“Miranda,” Simon murmurs.

“Yeah, something like that,” Miles confirms. “So that’s one reason. Another was because the government’s got plenty of projects they need ghosts for. Like your lab assistant Ethan,” he adds.

Juliet shuts her eyes.

It wasn’t real. None of it was real. _Nobody_ was real.

“Do you know who you are then?” she asks Miles and he shook his head. “No, and I hear that’s lost. Once you’re wiped, you’re wiped. We’re just the lucky ones who got implanted with new memories to keep us company.” Miles stops with the act for a moment and leans over to look at Juliet more closely.

“It wasn’t all in our head,” he says, trying to comfort her. “All those people we knew… those were lives. Just not in this verse.”

“Which means there could be hundreds of people the Alliance is planning to use as lab rats,” Mal interrupts. “Which is a little beyond our normal scope.”

“What happens to the people when the Alliance wipes them?” Juliet asks, determined to learn everything at once. “I thought I was dying just before Mal showed up. Was any of that real?”

Miles thinks for a moment, swiping the drink Jayne was passing around the table.

“Can’t answer that second one, love, but it looks like the Alliance programs them with something new,” he says. “The popular choice is to make them operatives, to go out on missions and destroy people the Alliance doesn’t like. That program’s been around a long while. Some get subliminal programming and are sent out with settlers to monitor their progress. Like real Others.” Miles pauses, sharing a glance at Juliet. “Well, the Alliance has more programs than we know about.”

“And you just decided to come out of hiding and tell us all this,” Mal sums, leaning forward in his seat to stare at Miles carefully. “What’s to say you’re not a sleeper yourself? Juliet doesn’t seem to be your biggest fan. What were you like when you were asleep?”

“He was self-serving and reckless,” Juliet answers for Miles. “But loyal.” Twisting her fingers together before she lets herself even ask the question, she drops her voice. “Have you found anyone else? James?”

There are a dozen other names Juliet wants the location of (Rachel, Julian, Jack, Edmond, Richard), to know if they’re even real or just phantoms sent to haunt her in the afterlife, but working with Miles has always been about finding common ground. It pays off.

“Not yet,” he admits seriously before taking another draw of his cigarette. “So what do you people do around here for fun?”

 

Miles isn’t exactly easy company to keep but after a quiet conversation in the engine room with Juliet, Mal agrees to keep him on board while they finish their tour of the outer planets, checking for signs of lost lives. They still have a job to do, and he’s still the captain, so Miles gets put to work as cleanup crew. He doesn’t argue the point and Juliet knows it’s because it doesn’t really matter. It’s temporary, until they make it back to Independent HQ, but it’s still strange to catch him watching her, threads of memory tugging at her brain that she can’t quite pull together.

 

“What’s his story?” Mal asks Juliet one day while they’re cleaning guns in the kitchen. His collection is twice the size of hers but Juliet prides herself on discriminating taste. The fact she’s saved enough coin for the few she has is enough for her self-esteem.

“Who, Miles?” Juliet asks. Mal nods, curves his arm out and holds an imaginary foe at gunpoint. “I only know his island story, which isn’t real,” she answers.

“But it might tell us something about what his next move is,” Mal says and Juliet laughs. “James once told me Miles was offered over a million dollars to bring in Ben and he tried to get twice as much out of Ben for his silence. All he got was a grenade between his teeth until Locke decided to come back.”

“This James,” Mal asked, “was he your husband?”

Juliet doesn’t know how to answer him believably. “Close enough,” she tries. “We lived in a hippie commune after we stopped time traveling.”

Mal stops cleaning his guns and looks at her. “Time traveling? And you didn’t think that was…strange?”

“It was an odd island,” Juliet defends and spun her pistol around her finger. “There was a black smoke monster that made ticking sounds and killed people, a secret bearing you had to know to leave the island and pregnant women died.” She sobers at the last one and Mal leans back in his chair, just waiting.

“And there were some really awesome people,” Juliet adds. “Including Miles.”

 

She has a similar conversation with Miles a week out from Whitefall when he pulls her aside to his cabin and asks in a low voice, “Are there any bugs on this ship?”

“Yes, terrifying spacebugs,” Juliet jokes. “What are you talking about?”

“ _Recording devices_ ,” Miles emphasizes and Juliet rolls her eyes. “They’re not going to spy on their own ship, Miles.”

“Good, because I wanted to ask you stuff,” he whispers and Juliet arches an eyebrow at him. 

“They’re good people,” she tells him. “I should know.”

“They’re the only people you know,” Miles argues, but as she turns to leave he catches her wrist. “Juliet, please.”

A memory, dim and half-forgotten, flashes through her consciousness.

_James, Miles, Amy, Horace and Juliet, sitting around a board game with half-full glasses of Dharma wine. “The very best boxes Hanso could afford,” Horace jokes before Juliet feels dizzy and slips away to the bathroom to splash water on her face._

_Miles follows her and asks “You okay?” before pressing her back and angling his mouth to her neck. The blood rushes to her face, hot, and Juliet grips the sink behind her but doesn’t pull away, lets him pull her shirt off and drop it to the floor._

_“We’ll be missed,” she protests, and he laughs against her stomach. “They’re all pretty drunk,” he mumbles and she shivers, digs her nails into him. “James will notice,” she amends._

_“James isn’t him. You know that, right?” Miles asks before kissing her._

It’s a shock of memory but one Miles doesn’t seem to share because his expression doesn’t change, his question still unanswered. 

“Not the only people,” she assures him and pulls away. “I have work to do.”

She heads back to her cabin and tries to remember more – more of James, more of life outside the hippie commune – and comes up short, is left only with the sensation of heat and loss. Juliet climbs into her bunk and pulls the sheets around her tightly (shuts her eyes and thinks of anything but people who don’t exist; lets her mind wander to those in the here and now).

But with Miles here, Juliet gets used to the flashes of memory happening more often and more clearly. She should be grateful for what she has but all she wants is to know more (her old desire for answers stirs, demands).

 

During the following weeks, Mal keeps an eye on Miles between explorations of worlds the Alliance never bothered with, or left no evidence on, while Miles keeps an eye on Juliet. He watches her from the kitchen entrance when she starts meeting with River again to search through the records of missing women who might not be her. He doesn’t need to ask what’s going on. She might not even be missed, but Juliet’s not giving up (she has to try).

Juliet starts to dream of them at night – people from a life she half-lived, people who mattered but who she might never find, and she starts to wish for any way to get them back. At one point she even sneaks into Shepherd Book’s old cabin, hoping for stores of religious drugs, comes up short.

In the meantime, she rediscovers pieces of her life.

_Juliet can see Rachel laughing across the room but the man she’s talking to (struggles with his name for a moment , Burke, something Burke) won’t let her get away from the story he’s telling. He doesn’t gesture very much while he talks. Juliet finds that odd, tries to wrap things up._

_“But she didn’t like the risk,” he was explaining, “so we had to find new funding because our backers pulled out without a large enough testing pool.”_

_He has her full attention._

_“For the drug trials?” she asks and he nods, hardly noticing she wasn’t paying attention before. “But Widmore Labs just confirmed this morning, we’ve got the money. Which is where you come in, Dr. Carlson.”_

_“How’s that?”_

_“Didn’t you impregnate a male mouse?”_

_Juliet smiles. “It was a rat, actually.”_

 

It all seems very far away now, lost in time and space. The things she lived are too radical, too beyond belief. She doesn’t understand how she never saw it before, never understood she was living a lie. How she didn’t question more often. Juliet takes a strange, vindictive pleasure in the lack of recurring numbers here and the nonexistence of Widmore Labs. She and River don’t talk very much while they go over the reports of missing women. Instead, they work to River’s quiet humming while they sort through the families and loved ones to contact briefly the next time they’re near a civilized planet.

Miles interrupts them one day, catches Juliet staring off into space.

“What are you really searching for, love?” he asks and she tries to connect this man with the one she knew (remembers knowing). “I doubt you’re in there,” he adds, not unkindly.

“You don’t know that,” Juliet argues, shutting the nearest file and pulling it close to her, staring him down. River doesn’t even stop what she’s doing, just lets Miles and Juliet sort it out (she might not even understand).

“This is your life now,” Miles tries to explain. “Anything you had before, they took it. You wouldn’t even recognize your family if you found them. This, and what they gave you, is who you are now.”

“Don’t you care that they took everything?” Juliet asks, feels herself taking a familiar role. “That you are who they made you, that they made you live a story, care about people who don’t exist, who you’ll never find?”

“Of course I care,” Miles tells her and he struggles to explain himself. “But you exist. I exist. We didn’t live a complete fantasy.”

“No, we just lived on a magical island with monster and hippies and hydrogen bombs, and _traveled through time_ ,” she argues and he actually smiles at her, like it’s funny.

“We kinda did,” he points out. “But if you insist on doing all this… you could use some help. What can I do?”

River interrupts them without even looking up, passes Miles a file and states in her precise way, “Locate the plaintiff and determine if they are living or deceased and sort accordingly. Check for known diseases in the missing person and any peculiarities.”

Taking the file she passed him, Miles whispers to Juliet (clearly not completely sold on this idea), “What’s her deal?”

He looks fascinated more than anything else.

 

It’s a brief dream that lasts all night.

_There’s water, freezing water, pouring in from the sealed door and it makes Juliet choke on her own breath. The man – Jack, she swears it’s Jack and clings to that belief – is holding a sharp object to her throat and threatening to kill her if Ben doesn’t do as he says._

_Juliet’s always been afraid of drowning (why Ben makes her stay at this station now) and feels a flush of panic as the man supposedly in love with her turns and leaves her to die._

_She’s not going to die, not going to let Jack kill her. Knocks him out and forces the door shut again, gasps as the water drains away._

_Juliet wakes before she sees his face._

 

One day Juliet walks into the kitchen to find Miles and River already going over the data they robbed from the Records Department, without her. “What’s going on?” she asks, careful and measured, pieces of her old personality blending with her new.

“Miles is helping,” River informs her, running a stylo down the sheet of information, searching for clues.

“Miles is helping,” the man echoes to Juliet, seriously. “Why didn’t you tell me this is what you were taking from the Alliance? I could have helped sooner.”

 _I didn’t know you,_ hangs on the edge of Juliet’s tongue but it’s a lie and they’d both know it. She’s just never been good at sharing.

“Found anything interesting so far?” she asks instead, sitting down at the table with River and cutting open an apple to eat.

“The information is disorganized. It doesn’t make sense,” River says, her voice rising sharply before Miles reached across the table and covers her searching hand with his, stopping it before she attacked the paper. “It’s not supposed to make sense, love,” he reminds her and passes Juliet a file.

“I think we might have a better shot at understanding these than she does,” he suggests. “What with our implanted memories and all. Does any of this look familiar?”

The dreams may actually be worth the sick feeling she’s left with in the morning because Juliet does recognize something in the pattern, in the way the data’s put together, and walks around the table to sit next to River.

“Let me see if I can explain this,” she suggests and River’s expression is both wry and mocking. “No, seriously,” Juliet insists.

The Alliance may finally have made a mistake they can use.

“There was a man named Jacob,” Juliet begins, “who liked to toy with people. And most of all, he liked to organize them.”

 

“What’s it like, working with the group that gets people out?” Juliet asks Miles over dinner one night, once she’s remembered enough of the island to decipher the answer he gives her.

He thinks for a moment before telling her. “Like working for Widmore, except we’re the good guys.”

The answer is more disturbing than anyone else at the table knows, including Miles, and Juliet covers her shock with a disinterested “huh” and stuffing a bread roll in her mouth. That night, after everyone’s gone to bed, Juliet sneaks into the bridge, a thought nagging her.

“What are you doing?” Mal asks from the pilot’s chair, practically invisible in his dark coat with the lights off.

It could be worse (it could be Miles).

Juliet bites her lip, sits on the lit console in front of Mal and tries to name her concern. “I want to know more about the group Miles is working with,” she explains and Mal snorts. “That’d be nice.”

“I don’t even know where to start,” Juliet says and grips the side of the console. “Are they connected to the Independents at all? Even if he doesn’t know about it?”

“They could be connected to the Alliance for all we know,” Mal answers and drums his fingers against the console, considering something. “I looked into it after Simon and River first came on board with us. Nobody really seems to know anything.”

“But that was almost two years ago,” Juliet points out. “There’s a war now. It could be different.”

“So I’ve heard,” Mal says, “but we learned from last time. Be more organized and less connected. The Alliance cuts off one head, two more can grow in its place. It’s usually an advantage.”

All the same he pulls up another screen and Juliet leans closer, watches as he pulls up a list of names. “Who are these people?”

“Nobody,” Mal says. “Literally, nobody. Under the radar like us. They might hear things the Independent brass doesn’t know about, or can’t know about.”

“Or we could just ask Miles,” Mal suggests and swings around in the chair to face her, nearly sending her off balance as she catches herself on the arm of the pilot’s seat. “Sorry,” he breathes, voice lower than usual and Juliet shuts her eyes, remembering.

Not right now.

Regaining her balance, she collects herself. “What were you saying?”

“Miles,” Mal replies, reaching to switch a command back over, his arm brushing against her leg. “He might know more than he realizes. It’s a very nice story about how he got out when the lab was getting hit, but it might _be_ just a story.”

 

“Alright,” Juliet returns, sliding off the console. “In the morning, we ask him.” She heads for the exit when Mal’s fingers drag at hers, barely holding her.

“If you’re not sleepy, I wouldn’t mind the company,” he tells her. “Zoe’s coming on watch a few hours.”

“Is there something you want to talk about?” Juliet questions, curious, and Mal turns his chair to face her. “Do you remember anything about the island?”

“Well, there was a ping-pong table,” she starts, sitting in copilot’s seat.

_Juliet’s finishing her dinner of cereal when Jack comes over to the tent with a chocolate bar, sits next to her. “Don’t forget to brush,” he reminds her teasingly before starting on his own. They don’t talk about anything, just sit in comfortable silence and watch the waves crash against the sand._

_“I did this all the time, on the other side of the island,” Juliet confides. “Except I mostly did it alone.”_

_Before she has time to miss her old life, Jack’s pressing a gentle kiss against her mouth and Juliet gasps against the sudden contact, leans into where his arm holds her steady. It’s almost a painful limbo, the way he kisses her, and Juliet feels the whole weight of three years of her prison slipping away in comparison._

_“I have to tell you why I’m here,” Juliet breathes against his mouth (curses the lack of contact)._

When she wakes in her cabin, Juliet can still feel Jack’s arm curled against her stomach (wonders why she can’t remember anything about James but his name).


	7. Chapter 7

Slowly, the pieces start to come together. Juliet sorts the data from the Alliance records and River compiles data from every Alliance planet they think might be a target. Slowly, the picture forms.

There’s little variance between the data from the original humans who settled the verse and the current population, but just enough variance for River to notice. There’s a seven percent decrease in theft on one planet, a six percent decrease in literacy on another (a three percent increase in charity, a four percent increase in street riots)

She goes to Mal with her full report, finds him in his cabin and knocks on the steel frame above.

“Yeah, come down!” he calls and she peeks down the ladder. “Are you cleaning?” she asks, bewildered. “Organizing,” Mal answers amidst the pile of junk cluttering his floor. “I can’t find a clean red shirt.”

“You mean out of all the shirts you own?” she teases, climbing down the ladder. Mal rolls his eyes at her. “Ha. What’ve you got?”

“Evidence,” she tells him, cutting to the chase. “It’s what we thought, or close enough. There’s variance on every world, even when we control for age.”

“What about culture?” Mal asks and Juliet shakes her head. “We’re not talking about border planets here. These planets all share similar history and means of social order – their laws are similar, the schools are standardized. It probably makes it easier for the Alliance to test their results, which in turn makes it easier for us to see them.”

She can tell his eyes are glazing over, looking at the file, so she takes it back and keeps talking. “They’re poisoning people, Mal. They’re just getting better at it. We need to tell the Independent brass.”

Mal leans against the ladder and looks at her carefully. “I’m not saying we don’t,” he says, “but if they _are_ doing this, we don’t know who’s infected. Do we?”

“No, we don’t,” Juliet admits. “We could try tracing where people came from to see what their risk would be.”

“Alright. Do that first,” he suggests and picks up another shirt. “This ain’t my field of expertise. I don’t want them to see us coming.”

“You’re right,” Juliet agrees. “I’ve already checked the crew out though. You don’t have to keep your voice down. And,” she adds before reaching for the ladder rungs again, “that shirt’s not red. Congratulations.”

“You already checked?” Mal asks, stepping closer.

“I had to make sure you were safe,” Juliet answers, flustered at the proximity. She’s even more so when Mal drops a hand on either side of the ladder, trapping her.

“Who’s checked you out?” he asks and she laughs. “Mal, if I’m infected, it’s seriously backfiring.”

“True,” Mal concedes and starts to pull back when Juliet drops the file and tugging on his coat, stands on her toes to kiss him.

His hands slide back up the ladder near her hair, pressing her against the rungs and tilting her head towards his. Juliet feels dizzy, her hands sliding behind his shoulders to pull him closer, a thousand sensations flooding her. _This is real. If nothing else, this is._ Eyes sliding shut, she feels him press her mouth open a fraction and gasps, tastes dark spices on his tongue. The ladder rungs hurt against her back so Juliet curls her arms around his shoulders, goes dizzy when his mouth trails away from hers to breathe against her throat, his hands bracing her.

“Okay?” Juliet asks, thinking he looks good flushed (and more surprised than she expected). “Yeah, I was just half-expecting to pass out,” he answers and she gives him a weird look before he leans over to kiss her again. She decides it doesn’t matter what he meant, her nerves tracking the slide of his hand to her knee. Juliet grips the rung behind her, guessing.

The comm crackles, uninvited.

“Mal?” comes Zoe’s voice. “You might want to see this.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Juliet laughs as they freeze, wondering what Zoe can hear. He releases her leg, leans against Juliet even as he glares at the offending machine.

“What is it?” he barks and Juliet stifles a giggle. The hatch above them is still _open_.

“Independents are sending us a wave,” Zoe answers and Juliet and Mal exchange a look. “Be right there!” Mal replies and the comm clicks off. Reluctantly, Mal steps back to give Juliet space.

“I guess I should get back to work?” Juliet asks, picking up her files while Mal watches. “And you should get to the bridge.”

“I’m on it,” he tells her. “You go ahead, I’ll be right up.”

 

It wasn’t a courtesy call. The Independent brass got word Mal was looking for information on the underground movement and called in a tip. According to their intel, Miles checked out. They did find something else.

“You have any idea why a subsidiary of Blue Sun would be writing off large sums of money before these operations last year?” Mal asks Miles, calling him up the bridge where Juliet and Zoe were looking over the new documents.

“It looks like they’re expensing lost ships and equipment,” Miles says, looking at the list. “What’s this about?”

“It’s easier to fund an insurgency if you’re not getting shut down by the government,” Juliet explains. “If they wired money or paid out cash, it would eventually get suspicious. But in a war, nobody really asks what happens to missing ships or cargo. It just disappears.”

“And someone who’s working to rescue people ends up with an escape ship and supplies to set them up with a new life,” Mal adds. “Like your people.”

“It sounds like a big risk,” Miles argues. “Why would they do it?”

“Some people are stupid,” Zoe says. “Some people are idealists. Don’t always have to be both.”

“So you’re saying Blue Sun is funding the war operation,” Miles reasons. “Don’t they stand to lose a lot if the Independents win? More than if the Alliance finds out?”

Mal and Zoe exchange a look before he answers. “The Alliance has a lot of trade restrictions,” Mal points out. “Tariffs, quotas, rules on who can trade with who, how much you can pay. It’s expensive setting up subsidiaries to get around that, not to mention all the paperwork and taxes Blue Sun’s got to manage. They might do better if the Alliance stopped existing.”

Miles whistles lowly. “Holy shit.”

“It’s been done before,” Zoe continues and pulls up a history file on the Cortex. “Most wars start because of trade borders and trade losses. Sometimes people get tired of paying it out.”

“Who would know this?” Miles asks. “It’d have to come from the top, right?”

“Actually, Zoe and I were thinking it could be anyone from the top to the middle to the bottom,” Juliet suggests. “This is a war organized by people who want to be _independent_. So there’s no way to pin it down.”

“Clever,” Miles admits, clearly impressed. “So you want to know…”

“We want you to think about your group,” Mal explains. “Think about who would know. We’re going to set up a meet and see if we can find some of these hidden government labs. Break some people out in a big way.”

“I like it,” Miles says with a smirk. “I like that _a lot_.”

Juliet continues her research with Miles, except this time they research specifics. They know what they’re looking for, and it goes much faster. River gets bored with the subject (“It’s all there, you’re just not looking!”) but she still comes around from time to time. Juliet wishes she could give the girl something to work on, to focus on again. She seems less clear, less grounded these days.

It’s all the more reason to find out exactly what the Alliance is doing, and to whom. She reminds Mal of this when they meet secretly on the bridge and in the cargo hold, and he tries to remind her he’s not a soldier anymore (his war’s long over). It’s hard to reason with him when his hands run across her skin, or even argue his point when joining the war holds less appeal than the sound of her name in his throat, but even he concedes one point.

They can’t just walk away.

But the days drag on, and Juliet tires of flying around from one end of the verse to the other, tires of trying to fit a society that’s not her own, tires of trying to make the pieces of her memory fit together in a way that make sense, in a way that doesn’t omit everything she needs to know. It leaves her with questions of who she is and why the Alliance wanted her locked up, wonders if she deserved it. Scoffs at the thought and goes back to reading through the list of women who will never be found. Her eyes are sore from reading the same names over and over, but she can’t let it go. 

Maybe that’s her dangerous quality (she’ll find a way, no matter what).

One day, River and Miles come to visit her in her cabin, clearly bored and stir crazy. 

“You wanna play cards?” Miles asks, leaning against her cabin door while River sits on the floor by Juliet’s feet. “I mean, she looks comfortable, but we could pass the time,” he says.

“I just want to go home,” Juliet explains from where she’s sitting cross-legged on the bed, papers of missing women strewn around her. “And I’ve been looking this whole time but I can’t figure it out. I’m tired of trying to figure it out. And I –”

“About that,” Miles says, cutting her off, “I had my friends do some digging. Story is, nearly ten years back, two sisters went missing.”

Juliet’s breath catches in her throat, and Miles pulls out a piece of paper from his jacket. 

“One of the sisters was sick, really sick, but she was involved in some deep insurgent movement,” he explains. “The Alliance wanted to take her out, but they didn’t want her dead. Leverage, they said. So both sisters disappeared at the same time.”

For the first time in a long time, Juliet feels hope break through all the mess her research has left her with. “What makes you think it’s me?” she asks carefully, taking the folded piece of paper from Miles.

“I don’t know how much is true or not,” Miles tells her, “but I do know two sisters went missing at the same time, and now…” Miles pauses and pulled out another sheet of paper Juliet wasn’t going to let herself look at. “Now there’s a woman searching for her missing sister. I had my people look into it. She has a five-year old son, and his name… his name is Julian.”

Juliet says nothing, just grabs for the other sheet of paper and stares at the woman’s face. 

“Are you sure?” she asks, clinging to the name. _Rachel._

She’s dreamt that name.

“Why would she know me? Why would she be looking for me?”

“Didn’t you say you had a sister, while you were asleep?” Miles asks. “Maybe the Alliance wanted to use you, maybe the Alliance wanted to pick your brain, and maybe you found something.” He shrugs. “It’s the Alliance, who knows _why_. But she remembers you.”

“Where is she?” Juliet asks, staring at the woman’s face and the profile of information next to it. “Can we go find her?”

The woman is tall with a bright smile, and the little boy in the snapshot Miles hands her is the sweetest child Juliet’s ever seen. They both have yellow hair that contrasts with the dark interior of wherever they are. Rachel’s holding Julian but her eyes look past the camera, searching.

_They’re ten, maybe eleven, and Juliet’s begging Rachel for just five more minutes in the park. Summer nights in Miami are warm and bright, and her older sister is here to look out for her. Juliet calls out, “Higher! Higher!” and Rachel teases her as she pushes the swing. “You’re not scared?”_

_“I’m not scared of anything!” Juliet calls, looks past the park benches, park trees, and skyscrapers to the world beyond._

_When they finally go home, Rachel slips her hand through Juliet’s. “Are you sure you’re ready to go home?” she asks and Juliet, sleepy and hungry, sighs against her older sister. “Of course I am.”_

“Miles. _Miles_ ,” Juliet repeats and clings to the photo. “We have to go get her.”

“The Alliance is probably watching her,” Miles warns Juliet. “She might even work for them. I’ll let you know when I have more information,” he says and pulls out the cards. “Can we have some fun now?”

“No, Miles,” Juliet says excitedly, jumping off the bed and heading for the bridge. “We’re going to find her now.”

 

Rachel and Julian live on Liann Jiu, a planet with Alliance ties but mostly devoted to trade, with the capital city university being the locus point where academia and government met. According to Miles’ intel, Rachel was an established professor of chemistry there, for nearly a year now.

“No doubt most of this background is falsified, created by the Alliance to reintegrate her,” Miles explains. “Her schedule’s erratic – life of an academic – but Julian’s daycare closes at 1900, so she has to leave before then to pick him up.” He pauses. “Where do you want to do this meet?”

“I like the house,” Mal says, pointing to the blueprint Miles pulled up. “It’s got two entrances and the trees in front give you some cover, in case someone’s watching. You can go at night.”

“I have no idea how I’m going to do this,” Juliet admits. “I can’t just walk up to the door and say ‘Hi, sorry I went missing for all those years.’”

Nobody had an answer.

“Maybe you should think about that some more,” Jayne suggests from the kitchen and Juliet laughs nervously. “Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”

“Anyway, Zoe, Jayne and I will cover you when you go in the house, and River and Miles can set up an open line from inside the house,” Mal continues. “We’ll go tomorrow. Tonight, we watch for any eyes on the house.”

 

It’s muggy when Juliet steps off the shuttle at the busy city sky port. She brushes her hair back, wishes she could tie it back, but it’s something to hide her face behind. Zoe suggested dyeing her hair color but Juliet refused – if the Alliance couldn’t recognize her, neither would her sister. Trying to stay calm, Juliet hails a taxi to take her to her sister’s block. She would walk the rest of the way and time her appearance with the guard shift across the street.

The crew should already be in position.

It’s just past 1900 when she walks up the steps to her sister’s house, a narrow, two-story white building with trees and shrubbery along the front, just like the pictures showed. Steeling herself for the risk it might be the home of the Alliance and not Rachel, Juliet smoothed her skirt nervously one more time before knocking.

A little boy answers the door.

He stares up at her through the screen with large blue eyes, round and curious. “Mommy?” he calls. “There’s a tall person at the door.”

“Julian, I’ve told you not to answer the door without me,” his mother scolds before rounding the corner and catching sight of Juliet.

Nobody speaks for a moment, Juliet forgetting to be nervous at the sight of this woman who is undeniably her sister. Same nose, same curly hair, and there’s something about that voice.

_”You did it, Juliet. I’m pregnant.”_

“Oh my god,” Juliet whispers and reaches out for Rachel through the screen, but the words break the spell. Rachel flings the door open, stumbles outside and pulls Juliet in a crushing hug that chokes the breath out of her. 

“I thought I’d lost you,” Rachel chants in her ear and Juliet grips her sister back, tighter. “You’re real, you’re real,” Juliet repeats back and forgets they’re outside where everyone can see, refuses to let go because the three years alone on the island come swimming back and she can barely stand without her sister. “I missed you so much,” Rachel whispers until Julian speaks.

“What are you doing? Mommy?”

Rachel lets Juliet go only enough to bring Julian outside. She tells him in a rush, “Julian, this is your Aunt Juliet. You were named for her, remember? And she’s the reason mommy could have you.”

It’s a little much for a five-year old to process but he steps forward anyway to shake Juliet’s hand. “Hi, Aunt Juliet. I’m Julian. Why are you crying?”

Surprised, Juliet wipes at her cheek with her free hand and smiles. “I’m just so happy to be here, Julian,” she tells him and looks back at Rachel, unsure where to go from here.

“I have a lot to tell you,” she starts and Rachel smiles with relief. “No kidding. Come in, I was just making dinner.”

It’s a long story to tell, and Rachel and Juliet go through an entire pot of coffee. Juliet asks Rachel to believe her before anything else and her sister reaches across the table to hold her hand.

“Juliet, they took you from me. I know that.”

“What do you remember?” Juliet asks, unsure how to proceed.

“I know one day I woke up in a bed in this house, with Julian downstairs, with a job at the university, and the sense something was wrong because you weren’t here,” Rachel tells her. “I know they wanted to find you, and maybe they thought I would do it for them, and maybe I have. But Juliet, I didn’t know what else to do.”

“My friends are outside, keeping guard,” Juliet whispers. “If there’s any problem, we’ll know right away.”

“What happened to you, Juliet?” Rachel asks, keeping her voice low and an eye on Julian, who was asleep on the couch.

Juliet shuts her eyes, tries to explain. “I woke up in a lab,” she begins, “and I think I was supposed to stay asleep, but Captain Reynolds was there and pulled me out. I have all these memories,” Juliet says, waving her hands, “of you having cancer, and helping you get pregnant and going to an island.”

“I don’t remember any of that,” Rachel answers, “but then, I don’t really remember being pregnant. I think they botched me,” she says with half a grin.

“But you’re real,” Juliet affirms. “The intel we got says they needed me because something was wrong with you, and that we were sisters before all this.”

“We’re sisters now,” Rachel points out and Juliet squeezes her hand tighter. 

“It’s hard to explain the rest,” Juliet tells her. “I’ve been on the run for over a year now, trying to find out what’s going on and who I am. I didn’t even know you existed, not really, until a friend of mine did some digging.”

“What do you remember?” Rachel asks, keeping Juliet’s hand in hers.

“Not much, only bits and pieces. They come back to me in flashes, and sometimes in dreams. But I’m trying to figure out what’s going on now,” Juliet answers. “There are people who are still trapped, still being used as lab rats.” She hesitates a moment before continuing. She hadn’t talked about it with Mal and there was a risk in this. There was always a risk, but Juliet wasn’t willing to give her sister up (a second, third time).

“Come with me,” she begs quietly, and Rachel shuts her eyes. “I want to,” she whispers back. “But Julian…”

“Bring him with you, of course!” Juliet exclaims but Rachel shakes her head. “I want to find out what they did to us, and I can’t do that on the run,” she confides. “I need more answers.”

It was all too true. Two years after escaping from the Academy, River was only showing marginal improvement, and sporadic at that. Juliet’s progress wasn’t much better. 

“Then we’ll find people for you,” Juliet promises. “I’ll stay in town until we make a contact, and you can use him to get in touch with us.”

“Don’t disappear,” Rachel reminds her and Juliet smiled before the device in her ear beeps once. “I have to go,” Juliet whisper, looking around. “I should leave through the back.”

“This way,” Rachel guided, and before Juliet slipped out she gave Rachel instructions. “I’ll be back in a few days. There’s someone watching your house.”

Outside, Zoe’s waiting for her past the gate. Throwing a glance behind them, Zoe tells Juliet in a low voice, “Guard shift was coming up. How’d it go?”

Juliet finds her voice more easily than she thought. “I’m good, Zoe. And I think she is too. She’s not leaving though, and I want to set up a contact between us and her so she can send word if she has to.”

“Makes sense,” Zoe says. “Could also help to find out if she’s a time bomb.”

“Don’t even say that,” Juliet argues. “And I don’t care if she is. We’ll fix it. She’s my sister.”

“Doctors,” Zoe answers, rolling her eyes, but leads Juliet back to where the crew was waiting.

 

Staying in one place for too long was impossible, so Juliet only sees Rachel once more before they leave. 

“Find out what they’ve done to you,” Juliet orders and Rachel laughs. “Stop being so bossy,” she retorts playfully but Juliet just pulls her into hug. “I will come back for you,” she promises before forcing herself to let go.

It was easier going back on the run, knowing part of her life and memories were real.

The man Miles sets up to help with Rachel sends Juliet weekly updates, which she shares with Simon and River while Miles listens in. So far, Miles’ group hasn’t been able to find anything wrong with Julian; he seems to be a normal healthy boy. Rachel, on the other hand, has clear signs of testing – memory gaps, surgical marks, and her brain maps show stripping and manipulation. But none of the tests so far indicate any behavioral modification or implants.

“Sometimes the Alliance just hurts people for being different,” Simon says, trying to explain, and Juliet gives him a weird look. “I didn’t use to think so either,” he replies. “But that’s the only explanation I have for Miranda.”

“But not for River,” Juliet argues.

Simon nods in agreement. “River was the response to Miranda. Punishment for their punishment.”

Juliet hopes it’s nothing of the sort and works on finishing her Blue Sun research with Miles with fresh vigor, cataloguing and sorting by name, rank, and world Independents and Blue Sun employees to watch for.

They finally have lists worth looking at, and call Mal in for another look.

“The people in this list,” Juliet says, “are Independents from worlds we think the Alliance used as human labs. They might have been exposed to whatever treatment the Alliance used there, or been a variant of that. None of them seem to be Reaver-types though.”

“That’s a lot of people,” Mal replies, unsure. “Not too many higher-ups, but enough to worry about.”

“Shouldn’t you just take it to the leadership that isn’t at risk, and let them decide?” Juliet asks. “That’s their job, to police their own army, if something comes up.”

“I’m just worried they won’t be able to help clear out the labs, is all,” Mal answers and points to the next list. “Who are these people?”

“Possible Blue Sun allies,” Miles tells him proudly. “My friends on the ground are already making first contact with a selection of these, to see if they could help with your liberation efforts.”

“Already?” Mal asks, surprised, and Miles nods in confirmation. “We don’t sit around waiting,” he explains and Mal grins. “And if they’re not agents and they expose this to the company?” Mal suggests.

“Well, we tend to come off as crazy people first, just talk, and it’s really only those involved who try tracking us down later to get us to shut up. It’s worked before,” Miles elaborates. “You’ve been out of the game a while.”

“In case you forgot who started this war again,” Zoe interrupts, “you might want to rethink that.” Miles put up his hands and let Mal take the list.

“Think we could work over the list with our doctor?” Mal asks Zoe and she scanned the two lists quickly. 

“I’ll get right on that, sir,” she answers.


	8. Chapter 8

It moves quickly after that and Mal drops all pretense of _Serenity_ still being a trade ship. He and Juliet take a look at the cargo bay and talk about how many emergency cots would fit there, and how many ships they’d need to take out even one Alliance lab. Schematics and research reports get pushed aside for strategy talks, and finally Mal gets called in to report to the Independent admiralty.

It’s like walking onto an Alliance ship, with the uniforms and commands being shouted through the ship, but Mal, Zoe and Juliet walk with their escort through the ship’s corridors acting like they’re not in over their heads. 

“Things have changed a bit,” Zoe mutters to Juliet and the other woman gets why. This isn’t a ragtag army. This is a command center for all the military units across the verse.

The ship, _Challenger_ , reminds Juliet of pictures she’d seen of old battleships, all chrome and steel. In contrast, the officers and enlisted men here all wear brown and red.

“You can wait here for Admiral Rearden, Captain Reynolds,” their guide says when they reach the admiral’s quarters. Of all the things she’s done and dreamed, Juliet’s never once thought of herself as an soldier (realizes that’s what Richard Alpert’s training was all about).

The door opposite them swishes open. A tall man with neatly clipped hair and wearing a dark brown suit greets Mal first.

“Captain Reynolds, I presume. And these are?”

“My first mate Zoe, and my intelligence officer, Juliet, sir,” Mal answers, and the admiral returns his salute before gesturing them in.

“Please, take a seat. I hear your crew has been a very productive one these past few months,” the admiral congratulates them and pours amber liquid into three crystal glasses on his desk. Juliet and Zoe take seats on each side of Mal before the captain looks at Juliet. 

“How about you give the report?” Mal asks.

Juliet knows how to do this, remembers her training.

_”If I tell you who I am and everything I know, you would kill me.”_

“Sir, as you know we’ve gathered intelligence on the Alliance labs suspected to be on at least seven worlds,” Juliet begins. “We don’t have the resources to narrow the field more than that, but my recommendation is to start searching the areas outside periphery cities, where the Alliance could monitor the results but wouldn’t risk contamination. My second recommendation is to search underground, by looking for heat signals. These labs would be built of solid metal, which would easily be detectable if you’re looking for it.”

“And the Blue Sun report?” the admiral asks pointedly. Juliet purses her lips and shares a glance with Mal before answering. “Sir, that is a separate information contract which I can’t divulge at this time,” she answers.

“So you run an intelligence firm, do you captain?” the admiral questions of Mal, who leaned back in his chair. “I’m independent, Admiral.” 

Never mind they weren’t being paid for the Blue Sun information, but Juliet wasn’t sure Miles would want that shared with the entire fleet anyway.

“Alright, that aside, you’re telling me the Alliance does have operations similar to Miranda, on a smaller but more widespread scale,” the admiral concludes, swirling his drink around. “All we have to do is location the exact coordinates?”

“Yes, sir,” Mal affirms. “We’ve explored the border planets and found no signs of development, but these labs are the problem you were looking for.”

Leaning forward, the admiral smiled widely. “That was the job, so you will be paid,” he tells Mal. “But we’d prefer you end this contracting business and re-enlist with us, captain. You would retain your rank, ship and crew, of course,” he says, waving at Zoe and Juliet, “but it would be simpler from our end.”

“Thank you for the offer, sir,” Mal answers without blinking. “But my crew and I operate under the current arrangement only. However, we would like a heads up before you broadcast the news. We have people to extract.”

“We’ll do our best,” the admiral replies ambiguously before standing. “But the offer stands, captain. Take time to reconsider.”

 

“Sir,” Zoe says once they were back on _Serenity_ , “I don’t like it.”

“Me either,” Mal agrees and Juliet frowned. “What, specifically?” Juliet asks. “The veiled denial to warn us before they broadcast, _if_ they broadcast? The implication you have to re-enlist? His uniform?”

“What was wrong with his uniform?” Mal retorts but Zoe interrupts. “She’s right, Mal. We’re not part of the military anymore and we should stop acting like it. We need to finish this job and get out.”

“This job?” Mal asks, his rising voice echoing in the cargo hold. “Those are people down there, Zoe.”

“That’s exactly what I mean, sir,” she argues back. “After this, there’s going to be chaos. We can’t be a part of it.”

“What are you suggesting?” Juliet asks, wheels turning in her head. “Quit? Go home? Some of us don’t _have_ homes, Zoe.”

“I mean find a new home,” the other woman explains, stopping the argument in its tracks. “The Alliance is going to be busy covering this up or destroying people, or both, and the Independents aren’t going to want anyone getting in their way. And they’re more top-down, sir,” she finishes.

“You mean they might just fill the Alliance’s shoes,” Mal translates and Zoe nods. “Exactly.”

“Find a new home?” Juliet echoes. “A new planet? Is that even possible?”

“Start over,” Mal answers, staring at Zoe. “I’m not giving up my ship,” he stipulates and Zoe actually smiles at him. “Nobody’s suggesting anything of the kind, sir.”

“You both sound crazy, but it’s been done before,” Juliet speculates. “And even though I’m pretty new here, I have to say this verse kinda sucks. We don’t have a way to do it though.”

“You have a point,” Mal concedes. “But first-“ 

“I guess this is where I come in,” Miles interrupts, stepping in from the corridor. “You might need some help from my friends. And honestly, you’re not the first ones to come up with this.”

Zoe grinned across the cargo hold at Miles. “Thank god. Where do we start?”

 

Miles’ friends, as it turned out, were all over the place. With a verse of over a hundred worlds, the Underground had infiltrated more than half of them, including executive positions in corporations and even the Alliance. It was all a matter of planning, he explained, and in the years since the war ended, the Underground hadn’t stopped fighting. Old soldiers, officers, dissidents, reporters, scientists, artists, researchers all found common ground in what they still believed in. Knowing others believed kept them going.

“How did I not know about this?” Mal asks Zoe as they were led down a long hallway to the Londinium Underground cell. “I think because you didn’t want to, sir” she replies with a hint of amusement at his scoff.

It was too much of a relief to see the old Zoe creeping back in for Mal to be offended.

“This office building is just a front,” Miles explains while they pass storefronts and tourist stops. “It’s so near the heart of the Alliance, they can feel it beating. Well, if the Alliance had a heart.”

“What exactly do you have planned for us?” Juliet asks and Miles grins, resembling the Cheshire Cat for a moment (she tries to remember where from). 

“You’re going to meet the man in charge,” Miles confides. “You’re not going to believe who it is. _I_ didn’t believe it when we figured it out, because most of the Underground doesn’t even know who else is in the Underground. Safety precaution,” he tells her excitedly. “I only knew the people in my cell, plus one other, and that’s how every one of us works. But when he heard about what you had planned, he decided to meet you for himself.”

“Or you could just tell us who it is,” Mal interjects.

Miles waves the suggestion away. “Oh, you don’t know him. He’s an old friend of Juliet’s though. I know him by reputation more than anything.”

Mal gave Juliet a questioning look but she shook her head. “I have no idea what he’s talking about, I swear,” she says, but steps in pace with Mal, arms brushing together while they moved along.

Leading them inside a store which purported to sell model sailing ships, Miles shut the door and locked it. “Do people actually buy these?” Zoe asks and Miles snorts with amusement. “Yeah, all the time. It’s a hobby of his, I guess. The things people waste money on.”

“I’m sure if we didn’t know about evil Alliance labs and rescuing the galaxy, we’d make time for a model ship or two,” Juliet argues, noticing Mal picking one up to examine it. “You know I’ve never been on a sailing ship?” he was telling Zoe. “Never saw the point, when I could just fly. But one of these would be nice.”

Zoe gently took the model out of his hands and nods understandingly. “Sir, I know we forgot your birthday. I’m sorry.”

“Every year,” he mutters under his breath but Miles was already behind the register, waiting for them. “Are you guys coming?” he asks.

“Where?” Juliet questions, coming around the barrier before noticing. “So the Underground is literally… underground?” The trap door Miles was holding seemed to indicate that at least.

“Isn’t it always? Plus it’s kinda cool,” Miles says and gestures for her to go first. Juliet took the lead, heading down stone steps to a dark hallway. “Just keep going; there’s a door at the end!” she heard Miles call from where he was coming down the steps.

On the other side of the door was a group of people, standing around talking to each other in the dim lights playing off the stone walls in an eerie fashion. A case of nerves getting the better of her, Juliet let Miles overtake her to give the introductions after a series of handshakes and hugs.

“Guys, this is Juliet, Zoe and Mal, the people I’ve been flying with the past few months,” Miles announces. “And these people,” he continues, talking to the first three, “are my cell. This is Daniel Faraday, Charlotte Lewis, Naomi Dorrit and Frank Lapidus.”

The names tug at Juliet’s memory but she couldn’t place it until the redhead, Charlotte, steps forward to clasp her hand. “I think we’ve met before,” the woman says. “I mean, while we were asleep, but I think we’ve met.”

“You were all in the same lab as Juliet?” Mal asks, breaking Juliet’s surprise, but Charlotte shook her head.

“No, actually, we were in completely different labs,” Charlotte explains. “Daniel was the first to wake up – another cell broke him out – and he remembered us, even though the Alliance messed with his brain while he was under.”

Juliet’s first impression of Charlotte was that she was curious and hard to keep down. “I like her,” she announces, turning to Mal.

“Aren’t we supposed to be meeting someone?” Zoe asks, adjusting the rifle slung across her back, and Miles nodded. “Yeah, now that everyone’s here, we can go in.”

Crossing the room he knocks on the door in a coded rhythm, waited, and knocked again. With a hiss, the door opened, and a tall man with curly brown hair and a blue shirt stepped out.  
“Juliet, it’s very nice to meet you,” the man says, and Juliet crossed her arms, not knowing who he man was at all. “My name is Desmond Hume; you might remember meeting me?” He reached out his hand to Juliet. Tentatively, she shook it.

_It’s not really a memory, but it’s close enough. A sky lit up with purple. Electromagnetic energy tearing at her body, a burning ocean of light washing over her and voices screaming in pain._

_A face among all the others from the beach camp, who talked about a woman he was trying to stay alive for. A man who explained things like Widmore and what the Swan Station was for._

“Desmond?” she asks, carefully, and the man smiles at her. “Penny’s Desmond?”

“Did I hear my name?” a blonde woman chimes, coming out of the office. Peeking around Desmond, Juliet sees a model ship on the desk and figures at least he and Mal will have something to talk about.

“You must be Juliet,” Penny says and reaches out to shake her hand, a warm friendly smile on her face.

“Have we met? At all?” Juliet questions and the blonde shakes her head. “I haven’t had the pleasure, no, though Desmond told me about you. You were set up with the Others, weren’t you? My father’s people?”

“I think we need to get these people something to drink,” Desmond suggests and waved them into his office. “This isn’t the full setup, of course. My executive office is much nicer but this’ll have to do for now.”

“Your executive office?” Juliet asks, taking a seat on the couch next to Zoe and accepting the glass of whiskey Desmond offered her. 

“Mr. Hume here,” chimes Miles, “is the president of _Blue Sun_.”

Juliet’s glass nearly falls out of her hand and Zoe’s jaw actually drops. “No he’s not,” Zoe argues. “Blue Sun is run by John Harmon.”

“Ever seen a picture of John Harmon?” Desmond asks and Zoe shakes her head. “Feel free to search the Cortex now. John Harmon has been alive and well for all thirty-eight years of his life, at least on paper. For at least eight of those he was floating in an Alliance lab, courtesy of an evil father-in-law.”

“Well he doesn’t know he’s a father-in-law,” Penny clarifies. “And he wasn’t at the time. Apparently he even conjured a version of myself for Desmond while he was under, to torture him. Parents can be quite awful.”

“Agreed,” mutters Daniel from the corner where he wasn’t touching his drink. Charlotte slipped her hand through his, and the shadow passed. Juliet turned back to Desmond, feeling she had invaded something private.

“So when I woke up a few years back,” Desmond explains, “once Penny _actually_ found me, we fabricated a life for me so I could step into a management role at Blue Sun. Which is all to say, your plan of leaving this godforsaken verse and starting over sounds like an excellent one. That’s why we’ve been working on it for some time now.”

“You have?” Zoe asks and leans forward. “It wouldn’t just be a few hundred people leaving, would it?”

“Not at all, Ms...” Desmond trails off, unsure. “Ms. Zoe. Miles tells me you’ve already noticed write-offs over the years of equipment and ships. Well, as some of us and the Underground are one and the same, it hasn’t been going to waste. Other than breaking people out of the labs, those we knew we could trust, we’ve been preparing to leave. The Alliance has followed the example of its predecessors. It took over, paved the way for a coup, and leaves those who trusted it to ashes.”

“How many ships are we talking about?” Juliet asks, but Desmond just shakes his head. “I can’t tell you that right now, because the fewer who know the full picture is safer for the rest of us, for now. I can tell you we’re preparing a mass lab breakout soon. Your actions have pushed us into motion,” Desmond adds, looking at Mal, who was eyeing the other man appraisingly from where he was leaning against the wall.

“With the information you’ve collected we’ve both learned more specifics on where other labs are, and learned the Independents aren’t prepared to set them free before using their abuse to fuel the war and tip it in their favor. We can’t trust them, but we can use them,” Desmond continues and took a sip of his drink.

“So what’s our next move?” Mal asks, walking over to Desmond’s desk to pour himself a drink. “We go after all the labs, or just certain ones?”

“The Underground is assigning two cells to each lab,” Desmond says, motioning to Miles. “Your role is more of an infiltration issue – we need to know what’s going on in the sky while we’re coordinating ground efforts. One ship per planet should do it, but you’d be in charge of escorting the ships out of here.”

“How far away are we all meeting?” Mal questioned. “What you’re talking about sounds like a huge exodus. Anywhere too far away is going to take a long time.”

“Blue Sun, among other things, is a technology corporation,” Desmond explains, stepping around the desk to switch on a projector screen on the opposite wall. “In conjunction with some scientists who fell out of favor in Alliance circles,” Desmond says, nodding at Daniel, “we have built a drive capable of short-distance faster-than-light jumps.”

This time Mal dropped his glass in shock; out of the corner of her eye Juliet saw Charlotte press a kiss to Daniel’s cheek. Apparently this was a big deal.

“And you’re telling us all this because…” Mal presses. “Because we’ve only built them for small ships so far,” Desmond continues. “And with your permission, your ship will be outfitted with one, along with our other small transport ships. They’ll all meet our heavy ships at a pre-designated location.”

“Jayne,” said Mail, “is never going to believe this.”

 

“Your design is efficient,” River says, walking around the machine Daniel was carting onto _Serenity_ with Miles and Charlotte. “Your use of the internal flow pattern is quite ingenious.”

“Thanks,” Daniel gasps and lets Jayne take over the manual labor. “It’ll attach to your engine pretty simply,” he told Kaylee assuringly, who didn’t look worried at all. She was staring at the drive with glee , hands clasped together in delight. “And just like that, we’re going faster than light!” she grinned.

“Well we’re going to need to reinforce parts of the ship for the jump,” Daniel cautioned her. “But with your help, it won’t take me more than a day.”

Later, in the kitchen, they all went over the plan one more time with Miles, who would be staying on the ship with them to keep in contact with the underground below.

“At 0500 two days from now, the Underground starts the coordinated assaults,” Mal explains to the whole crew. “Once it’s underway, we’ll send a signal to the Independents requesting assistance, but Desmond will send out the broadwave to ensure people know what they’re fighting. Even if we can’t take them with us, they still deserve to know. Once that happens, we expect heavy air resistance from the Alliance, and we’re going to have to stay out of scanning range for the remainder of the fight. We’ll wait for their ships to come to us.”

“We’ve also provided the Underground with lists of names you gave us,” Juliet continues. “Anybody who is willing to come is welcome, but everything is going to move very fast once the attack is underway. People who stay behind are going to have to deal with the fallout between the Independents and the Alliance, and that’s not us.”

“Once the ships are in the air, we’ll send a wave with the updated meet-point coordinates and initiate the jump,” Mal adds. “Then we meet the Blue Sun ships already in place and start the trek for a new home.”

“You’re not going to make a speech about anybody who isn’t helping you out or taking their leave gets a bullet, are you?” Jayne asks sarcastically, taking a swig of his drink.

“No,” Mal says after a tense pause. “But it’s still true. If you want out, now’s the time.” Chancing a glance at Zoe, he saw her watching him. “Anyone who stays, stays,” he finishes.

“Then to the job, sir,” Zoe answers and something old slipped back into place. Something from before Wash and before Juliet, something from the days of the war and Serenity Valley. “That’s what we’re here for.”

“Weirdest ship I ever worked on,” Jayne mutters from the back but raises his mug in salute. “In case we all die,” he announces, “I like most of you.”

“I like you too, Jayne,” Simon jokes from the other end of the table and River laughs. “Let’s go dancing.”


	9. Chapter 9

Juliet runs into Mal before the action starts, while everyone’s at their stations and waiting for the signal. She’s heading to the bridge with River when he intercepts her and holds her back, out of view.

“Hey,” she says with surprise, his expression startling her.

Mal smiles back tightly, something on his mind. “Look, I wanted to let you know, when all this is over, you’re going to have options. You won’t need to stay on the run anymore.” He doesn’t look at her, just drops his eyes to the floor, hands on his waist pushing his brown coat back. “And – ”

“If this is a ‘you can leave if you want,’ speech,” Juliet interrupts, “what makes you think I’d stay if I didn’t want to? Besides,” she adds, resting her hand at his nape, “I’m your intelligence officer, remember? I’m your ticket for this ride to New Earth.”

“Is that what you’re calling it?” he asks, a hint of humor around his mouth, and she nods affirmatively. “Mmhmm. You should check it out with me.”

She presses her lips to his, memorizes this kiss as if it’s the last one at the end of the world (technically, it is). Juliet knows she has a need to end things when Armageddon hits, but before she pulls away, she warns him, “Don’t go dying on me, okay?” 

His forehead leaning against hers, she hears him swallow, his fingers pressing at her waist. “You’ve got a deal.”

Somehow, this time, it’s different.

“And I know you were going to fly _Serenity_ up here with River,” Mal adds, “but I talked to Desmond and Zoe, Jayne and me are joining one of the lab attacks. We could use your help down there, breaking people out.” He clears his throat awkwardly as a grin spreads across her face. 

“One last stand then?” she asks, trying to stay calm as he led them to the shuttle. “I would like some answers,” she admits.

Finally, some answers. And if she’s being honest, some payback.

 

The ride down to Londinium goes quickly, the shuttle full of tension as Jayne checks his weapons and Zoe goes over the plan one more time. Mal gets on the comm with Desmond once they hit atmo and has Juliet adjusts the flight plan for the drop point. “You’re going to have to leave first, to get back to your ship before everyone makes the jump to the meet coordinates,” Desmond tells them. “See you in the world.”

According to Desmond’s strike team, this lab is run out of an office supply company, which to Jayne means fodder for an explosive exit. The strike leader, Frank Lapidus, eyes Jayne’s set of grenades approvingly.

“I brought my own set,” the older man says and Jayne grins. “I’m packing enough for the both of us,” he boasts before Frank unzips his vest. 

“I used to be a pilot,” Frank says with a laugh.

It’s a quiet morning, everyone at worship, when they break open the normal-looking building above the lab. The glass doors shatter at their feet and security systems immediately go off. Jayne and Frank make quick work of the entire lobby, let alone the security system, by setting explosives in a circle on the solid concrete floor before they all race for cover.

“Well, somebody heard that,” Juliet comments after the shrapnel stops falling, the ground burning near the crater in the floor as Penny knots rappelling ropes around an internal column. “We’ll be coming out through the sewers,” Penny warns them, “but this is faster for now.”

The ropes drop into the darkness below and Frank drops three flares to see how far down they’ll have to go. “Pretty damn far, but I see the rope at the bottom,” he informs them, helps Desmond swing over the side on the rope. They follow Desmond one at a time, disappearing into the gloom below. It’s an old storage room, full of boxes of unused supplies.

Frank took the lead by blowing open the door and leading the assault down the hallway, Jayne shadowing him before gesturing for the others to follow. Running with her rifle aimed and ready, Zoe at her side, Juliet checked the corners they passed for the source of the voices marshaling the guards. A peel of gunfire came at them from behind and Juliet and Zoe took opposite sides of the hall, taking cover around the corners, firing back until the others were clear.

Door by door, they find records rooms and kitchens, private offices and rooms of cubicles, the same as any other office in the verse. Juliet tries not to think about it, about all the people involved in taking her to a place like this and keeping her there, kicks open another door in frustration.

 

“This way!” Desmond yelled, taking the lead, and shot at a guard racing toward them, jumping over his body to wrench a door open. Juliet doesn’t look at the man on the ground, just as Richard taught her. After all, they took her _sister_.

Payback’s a bitch.

Before entering the room, she scans the hallway once more before closing the door after them.

In the dimly lit lab, Zoe’s leaning against the wall, her hand pressed to her side, a red stain spreading across her waist. Juliet drops her gun next to her and reaches out, trying to fix it.

“Zoe?” she asks, pushing the woman’s vest aside and pulling her shirt up to take a look at the wound. “What did you _do_?”

“Stray bullet,” she explains and hisses as Juliet presses at the wound, still bleeding freely. 

Even in the gloom Juliet can see the shrapnel lodged there. “Stay still,” she orders, grabbing the gauze from her bag to wrap around her stomach. “Don’t you dare die on me,” Juliet orders her and Zoe smiles briefly, stays on her feet until Juliet’s done. “I don’t want to die, Julie,” she says.

“Well good,” Juliet answers, eyes stuck on how the gauze is already turning red, and presses Zoe’s hand over the wound to stem the bleeding. “Because if you try something stupid, Simon’s going to kill you,” she adds. “Cheat him of a wound like this?”

“Julie,” Zoe says, pointing behind her.

Long rows of dimly lit people hang suspended in the darkness.

Juliet helps Zoe walk over to where the others are already trying to wake people up, working their way down the long line of frozen individuals. Desmond and Mal hurry over to where they’re standing and eye Zoe who acts as if she’s not bleeding at the moment. Desmond calls out for Penny and turns back to the women.

“We might not be able to wake them all,” Desmond warns them. “Cut the power to their tube; if they wake up, they’re still alive. If they don’t, we can’t help them and have to move on to the next ones.”

Somewhere in space, Juliet hopes River remembered to send the signal to the Independents.

“We’re going up once we get them out,” Penny says, coming over to pass out meds. “And they’ll be traumatized so once they’re out and alert, give them a shot of adrenaline. It’ll get them out.” Without any ado, she stabs Zoe with a shot of adrenaline himself and she gasps, leans over, and breathes a little better. 

“Thanks,” she says, and stands back up. “I’ll start at this end,” Mal tells Juliet, and Zoe, still holding her side, walks over with him. 

It’s easier than Juliet thought, waking people, as long as she doesn’t look at their faces. The first four she tries don’t wake at all and she’s grateful when someone actually does wake up.

The girl gasps against the liquid and Juliet hits the release, sends her spinning onto the slick floor and helps her stand. “It’s okay, you’re okay now,” she repeats and pushes the girl’s dark hair out of the way. “Can you stand?”

“I think so,” the girl chokes and Juliet winces for her. “This is going to hurt.” She slams the adrenaline needle into her abdomen and the girl half-screams against her. Juliet holds her up until she’s vertical and staring at her with wide eyes. “We need to get out of here, fast,” Juliet instructs. “Head to the end of the hallway and we’ll get you out.”

But the girl stares at the long row of people in tubes and asks, “What do I do to help?”

It’s so simple and obvious; Juliet wonders how anyone could ever accept this is as moral or defensible.

The more people they manage to wake up, the more there are helping them and it goes faster than Desmond or Penny predicted. Frank and Jayne cover them from behind but the door’s still holding against what sounds like the remainder of the security force. They probably don’t realize it’s a coordinated attack, don’t realize their own lives are at stake, or they’d be trying harder. 

Juliet’s nearly reached the end of the line when she accidentally looks up at the man’s face.

_She knows him._

She _tried_ to forget him.

“James?” she asks, hand reaching up to match his. “No, no, no,” she curses and violently cuts the power, hopes against hope and life he wakes up.

Dimly, it all fades back into her consciousness. Why she died, why she woke up, what she came here to find out. They were all connected, and they’re all waking up now.

_”We gotta talk about this!” he yells at her but she’s too busy hiking away from him to give a damn. She has work to do._

_“There's nothing to talk about, James. We have to let Jack do what he came here to do.”_

_“Well, maybe you shoulda told me you had a change of heart before I brought him out in the jungle to kick his ass.”_

_“Would that have stopped you?” she retorts, stopping to face him and gets filthy satisfaction from his begrudging “No.”_

_“Well I'm glad you finally got it out of your system,” she bites and keeps walking until he pulls her back._

_“I need you to tell me where all this is coming from,” he begs and she can’t look at him. She’s set, she’s following something deeper than logic or love right now. “I mean one minute you're leading the great sub escape and now you're on board with blowing up the damn island? I got a right to know why you changed your mind.”_

_“I changed my mind when I saw you look at her,” Juliet admits and takes a breath to override him._

_“I don't care who I looked at. I'm with you,” he insists._

_“And you would stay with me forever, if I let you, and that is why I will always love you. What we had… it was just for a little while and just because we love each other doesn't mean we're meant to be together. Maybe we were never supposed to be together,” she argues. “So if Jack can make it that none of you ever come here then, he should.”_

_Juliet’s lungs ache from the effort it takes to stop and explain her reasons to him, but she can’t try on her own anymore. There’s something else she can do. Blow up a damn island._

_“Why are you doing this, Juliet?” he asks again. The answer shakes her out of the memory._

“If I never meet you, then I never have to lose you,” she whispers.

“James, wake up,” Juliet insists, pounds her fists against the glass. “You have to wake up! You have to wake up! James!” she yells again and kicks the glass for good measure. “Don’t you die on me!”

The guards break the door down with an explosion that shakes the room, and Juliet ducks from the sudden gunfire, searching for her rifle. It's still on the other side of the room.

James still isn't moving, doesn't wake, doesn’t hear her, and suddenly Desmond's pulling her away toward the group, yelling in her ear, “Juliet, we have to go!”

“No!” she insists, fights him, and her hands slide uselessly from the tube as he drags her away. She keeps her eyes on James until the lights in his coffin dim, and lets Desmond drag her to the end of the room. She pulls herself together long enough to climb up the rope out of the damn room (it's the last straw, the last death she has to relive).

_“If I never meet you, then I never have to lose you.”_

(She lost him, found him only to lose him again.)

Mal and Zoe are waiting for her at the top, and she smiles with relief when she sees Zoe's still okay. The wound is nothing Simon can’t handle but Jayne’s urging them to run faster, the escapees an easy target in their white suits. They shoot their way back to the shuttle and leave the world with 42 people from a room with at least a hundred, and James.

Still numb, Juliet breathes and tries to focus, swipes the tears off her face and fires up the shuttle. She lets the others handle the refugees while she goes through pre-flight, the familiar routine calming her (distracting her from any more memories just under the surface). This is just one more day. Chancing a look at Mal in the seat next to her, she noses the ship up, takes them out of the world to where _Serenity_ ’s waiting. 

The name holds a different meaning for her now. 

 

When the other ships make orbit, Juliet heads for the bridge and hears Mal warn the crew of their imminent departure. A call from Kaylee confirms everything’s green in the engine room and Juliet starts running through the flight prep, lost in her thoughts. The last thing she expects is for River to slide the bridge door open and climb in to the copilot’s chair.

“I miss flying with you,” the girl says and Juliet smiles across the gap between them. “It’s not the same without you either,” Juliet tells her and River smiles before looking out into space.

“I know you want to leave now,” River states quietly and Juliet stares at her. She _always forgets_ River is psychic. “It makes sense,” the girl adds, curling up tighter in the chair. “What with the man you lost, and your sister, and everything you know now.” River pauses but Juliet doesn’t know what to say, until the girl continues. “Simon wants to leave,” she confides, throwing a an amused look at Juliet.

“And you don’t want to?” Juliet asks, confused. “He’s only trying to make you better, River.”

“Everyone tries to make me better,” River answers. “I don’t mind the way I am though.”

It’s a thought to consider.

 

Juliet thinks it might be the hardest thing she’s ever done, including setting off a hydrogen bomb. It was all in her head, but it was also real, and she can’t stay here knowing that. Floating in space no longer seems like an option, and she knows that’s what this ship will always be. What it’s meant to be.

But for the first time since she woke up, Juliet longs to feel the wind in her hair, sand under toes, the crash of the ocean. It doesn’t intimidate her the way it used to. She pictures Rachel and Julian running down the shore toward a small house in a small town, where Juliet can find a way to be useful. Her hands itch for work (not all her training is false memory).

And she knows it will be years, perhaps longer, before that can ever happen. New Earth might not even have nice beaches. _But it might._

Juliet finds Mal in his quarters and the look on her face tells him something’s wrong before she says a single word, clutches at his hands as if she could ever make up for this. _I thought you might have to,_ he murmurs in her hair and she pulls him closer, spares him a selfish last kiss.

 _I will always love you,_ she swears, curls up next to him (lets him fall asleep before she pulls away and closes the hatch door behind her).

 

In the morning, he greets her with an old smile, the one he used to have before her.

“Did you see all the ships in the convoy?” Mal asks and she grins at him across her protein square. “You mean when I piloted us here?” she replies, amused.

“You’re a better pilot for _Serenity_ than I could ever be,” he tells her.

It’s the highest compliment he can give her (acceptance).


	10. Epilogue

Juliet’s spirits lift at the sight of the hundreds of ships hanging in orbit, and she leans closer to the speakers to catch what Desmond was announcing on a general broadcast.

“The Independents responded to our call,” his voice informs them, “but the Alliance is not retreating, and riots are starting on most of the worlds. Those who would like to return home, you should know this is your last chance.”

There’s a moment of silence, but none of the ships in the fleet fire up. Desmond continued.

“For some time, Blue Sun’s Underground has been coordinating with most of you, with ships captains and individuals in all fields and industry. We’re going to start over,” he promises. “A new world’s out there somewhere, if we hang on a little longer.” 

He pauses before adding, “And my wife would like to remind you we have several prospects in mind, so we won’t have to wait _too_ long.” The smile’s clear in his voice. “The smaller ships will be scouting solar systems as we move along. The only requirement is that we be as far away as possible from the White Sun and Blue Sun systems. Ship captains, we’ll be sending you updates as we progress, starting now.”

The console on the bridge lit up with the new coordinates all ships were to set course for, and Juliet slid into the co-pilot’s seat while River took over the captain’s chair.

“Do you think it’ll take long?” the girl asks and Juliet shakes her head. “Not long to you or me,” she answers and River smiles. “I like that answer.”

Behind them, a commotion stirred as a little boy raced up the steel steps, nearly running into Mal where he was leaning against the doorframe. A mother’s voice called out a warning. 

“Careful, Julian!”

“I want to see what Aunt Juliet is doing!” the little boy demanded and stood on his toes to look at her command screen. “Are you flying the ship?”

“I’m still learning some,” Juliet admits but hoists Julian into her lap so he could see the dials. “Would you like to learn with me?”

“This is a zoo,” Miles declared, following after Rachel to the bridge stand next to River. “Are you sure you know how to fly this thing, Juliet?”

Juliet smiles at him, looking back at the convoy of spaceships.

“I was thinking, instead of research, I was going to organize all the refugees,” she suggests. “It’d be good to find out who’s real and who’s not, and who’s still with us.”

“How many survived?” Rachel asks her, keeping an eye on Julian who had just discovered Wash’s dinosaurs. “Over a thousand,” Miles answers for Juliet, an old inflection of anger back in his voice. “And that’s just from the labs we found. We also raided an Academy.” He rests a hand on River’s shoulder, who reached up to hold his, keeping her other hand on the console.

Simon was going to love that arrangement.

“Where’s Zoe?” Juliet asks, glancing behind her, just before the other woman stepped up to the bridge. 

“I wondered where everyone went,” Zoe says, eying the group before leaning against the other side of the door frame and sharing a look with Mal. 

“See what I mean? Zoo,” Miles affirms and River rolls her eyes at him. “Don’t be such a baby,” she orders (“Are you ordering me around?” he challenges back). Zoe shared a look with Juliet who put her hands in the air.

“At least Zoe’s not going anywhere,” Juliet guesses and the other woman smiles, focused on the ships moving away together. 

“At least until we get to this new world,” she confirms.

“New Earth,” Juliet corrects and turns her seat away from the stars and back to her friends (to her whole family). 

Beyond _Serenity_ , a fleet of 527 ships carrying 27,449 people, plus one transport ship, headed into the black, past any point of exploration (another sky, another life).

One last thought echoes through Juliet’s mind before she turns back to the sky and lets the chatter behind her fade away.

_”It’s very stressful being an Other, Jack.”_

****_Finis_


End file.
